1
200
35
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Oral History Project was initiated in 2014 to document modern Athens history, roughly from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Interviews cover topics such as neighborhoods and communities in Athens, civil rights demonstrations, African American history, as well as personal histories of narrators.<br /><br /><span><strong>Content Warning</strong>: Some interviews in this collection contain harmful or distressing content, to include racism, racial violence, and racial slurs.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=1&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
105 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-122/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-122/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
Interview with Arthur Hinton, Jr., July 21, 2023
RBRL361AOHP-122
RBRL361AOHP
Athens Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
russelluga
Arthur Hinton, Jr.
William Breeding
0
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_lgc26pve&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&amp;flashvars[localizationCode]=en&amp;flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&amp;flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&amp;flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&amp;flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&amp;flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&amp;&wid=1_3tugz40b" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Arthur Hinton, Jr., Athens Oral History Project"></iframe>
2
Family and Early Life
I would like for you to tell me your parents, grandparents, as far back as you can remember...
Hinton provides a family tree stretching back to his maternal great-grandfather George Hudson, who was born enslaved before the Civil War. He talks about his early life being surrounded by educators who started a school that became a full family effort.
George Hudson; Civil War; Slavery; Leola Hinton; Will Hudson; Pinky Hinton; Betty Hudson; James Hinton; Arthur Hinton Sr.; Grandparents; Parents; Cluster Elementary School; Aliceville, Alabama; Educators; Principal; Cluster Baptist Church; Segregation
0
590
Elementary School
Now we're in 2nd grade, take us through the highlights...
Hinton discusses his time at Aliceville and R.J. Kirksey Elementary schools, and the process of R.J. Kirksey's opening. He remembers fondly his time at both schools, and talks about meeting friends and having teachers who really cared about the students.
Aliceville, Alabama; Country Schools; Segregation; African American Schools; R.J. Kirksey Elementary School; Aliceville Elementary School; Math; Friendships; High School; Integration; Class Reunion
0
1100
Childhood Games / Integration
Well before we go to high school, let's go back to the neighborhood, some of your earliest memories...
Hinton talks about the recreational side of his early life, detailing which games he played as a child. He then returns to the discussion of school as he describes the integration process in Aliceville that took place as he entered high school.
Basketball; Bicycles; Archery; Marbles; Hide and Go Seek; Television; CBS; NBC; World Book Encyclopedia; Go Kart; Freedom of Choice; Integration; Aliceville High School; J.R. Kirksey High School
0
1706
Integration in Aliceville
Now did you run into any racism during that time or prejudice...
Hinton talks more about the integration process in Aliceville and notes that he did not experience much of the racism and mistreatment that was common during integration across the nation. He also explains how R.J. Kirksey evolved from an African American school into the city's elementary and middle school.
Racism; Prejudice; Mistreatment; Aliceville High School; Integration; Racial Slurs; Football; R. J. Kirksey High School; Middle School; Segregation; Integration; Private School; Segregation Academy
0
2104
9th Grade and On
So now you're in the 9th grade...
Continuing in high school, Hinton talks about his experiences in playing sports after integration. He also discusses some of the systems at Aliceville High School that were implemented in relation to integration.
Basketball; Football; High School Sports; Private School; Assistant Principal; Racial Relations; Principal; School Administration; University of Georgia; Athletic Equipment; Equality; Science
0
2681
Extended Family / Deciding on University of Alabama
Now how many cousins were there?
Hinton mentions some of his extended family, explaining how many aunts and uncles he has and his relationships with them. He also talks about meeting his now-wife in high school, and his decision to attend the University of Alabama.
Extended Family; Aliceville, Alabama; Aliceville, High School; Relationship; Marriage; Graduation; University of Alabama; Alabama A&M; Microbiology; ROTC
0
3250
Life at University of Alabama
You mentioned my wife staying in Aliceville...
Hinton talks about what his life was like while attending the University of Alabama, from academics and ROTC to his relationship.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Stillman College; University of Alabama; ROTC; Aliceville, Alabama; Academics; Microbiology; Laboratory; Chemistry; Omega Psi Phi; Fraternity; College Life; Auburn University
0
3773
Graduate School / University of Kentucky and LSU
...back to University of Alabama, you took your four years?
Hinton continues discussing his path in education, including graduating with a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Alabama and then completing a Master's at the University of Kentucky. He then talks about his move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to pursue a Doctorate at LSU.
ROTC; Army; University of Alabama; Microbiology; Army Officer; Graduate School; University of Kentucky; Lexington, Kentucky; Master's Degree; Doctorate; Louisiana State University; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Food Science; Food Safety; Southern University; Teaching; Country Schools; Cholera; Food Borne Illness
0
4377
The Road to Athens
Then when you had to report for the service, to the Army, where did you go...
Hinton talks about a few more stops in his journey that led him to Athens including Fort Lee in Virginia, an Army Research Center in Massachusetts, a post-doctoral program in Texas, and an Assistant Professorship at Auburn University before coming to Athens for work at the U.S. National Poultry Research Center
PhD; Army; Food Science; Microbiology; LSU; Active Duty; Petersburg, Virginia; Fort Lee; Fort Gregg-Adams; Athens, Georgia; Natick, Massachusetts; College Station, Texas; USDA; Texas A&M; Auburn University; Assistant Professor; Poultry Science; USDA Richard Russell Research Center; 9/11
0
4714
Life in Athens / Track and Field
Now let's talk about your stay in Athens...
Hinton talks about what life looked like in Athens for him and his family. He details his experience coaching his sons in athletics and their journeys in track and field.
Athens, Georgia; Omega Psi Phi; 1990's; Willie Farmer; Russell Research Center; James Campbell; W.R. Coile Middle School; Gaines Elementary School; Winterville Elementary School; Winterville, Georgia; Auburn, Alabama; Cedar Shoals High School; High Jump; Track; AAU; Relay; Coaching; 400 Meters
0
5339
Parent Support / Russell Research Center
We're gonna go back to the Russell Research Center...
After a brief discussion of parent support in track and field at Cedar Shoals High School, Hinton talks about his role at the USDA Richard Russell Research Center. He details the differences in roles between lab scientists and research managers, and reflects on his career there as a whole.
Track and Field; Cedar Shoals High School; Relay; Jefferson, Georgia; HBCU; South Carolina; South Carolina State University; Poultry Science; US National Poultry Research Center; Research; Management
0
5719
Omega Psi Phi / Advice
Tell me about Omega...
Hinton talks about his experience with the Athens chapter of Omega Psi Phi and details the kind of work they do in the community. He then offers his advice to those who wish to achieve the success that he has, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a close relationship with family and finding a trustworthy mentor.
Willie Farmer; Maurice Daniels; Community; Athens, Georgia; Matthew McRae; Fraternity; Gainesville, Georgia; Scholarship; Talent Hunt; Grandchildren; Family; Parents; Mentor
0
oral history
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
/render.php?cachefile=RBRL361AOHP-122.xml
RBRL361AOHP-122.xml
http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP/findingaid
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Arthur Hinton, Jr., July 21, 2023
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
School integration
Education
Agriculture
United States. Army--Soldiers
African American veterans
United States--Veterans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Arthur Hinton, Jr.
William Breeding
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-7-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
rbrl361aohp-122
Description
An account of the resource
Arthur Hinton, Jr. was born in 1957 and grew up in Aliceville, Alabama. He went through the school system there, starting at a small country school run by his family and graduating from Aliceville High School following integration. He continued his education to the highest level, receiving degrees from the University of Alabama, University of Kentucky, and completing a PhD at LSU. His studies in microbiology and food science led him to a career at the USDA Richard Russell Research Center. In this interview, Hinton details this journey along with integration, his time with the Army, meeting his wife, and growing a family among.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Hyperlink
A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet.
Location
The location of the interview
Plains, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
37 minutes
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0039/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
IV. Plains, Georgia
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0039
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with C.L. Walters, February 20, 2014
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
C.L. Walters
Steve Short
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-02-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Veterans
Business enterprises
Description
An account of the resource
C.L Walters was born in Plains, Georgia in 1948. After serving in the Army, Walters graduated from Georgia Tech in 1957. He later returned to Plains, where he bought the family grocery store. In this interview, Walters talks about growing up in Plains, his time in the Army and school, jobs he held, and stories from the community. <br /><br /><br />This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">Plains, Georgia</a> series.
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Hyperlink
A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
44 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0020/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
I. Georgia Narratives
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0020
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Charles Clement, September 2013
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
United States--Veterans
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-09
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Charles Clement
Louis Boyd
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Description
An account of the resource
Louis Boyd interviews Dr. Charles Clement. Clement discusses the background of his family, who settled in Indian territory in Oklahoma before moving west to Moscow, Idaho. He talks about his father's experience in a one-room school house where he learned geography by "bounding" the states--memorizing the states that bordered a particular state. Clement talks about moving with his parents to Georgia and his time in the Air Force. He remembers meeting his wife at Piedmont College at the end of World War II (see FPP-0019) and his career as a professor at Piedmond College and the University of Georgia. Clement also mentions working on an economic impact study of Cumberland Island commissioned by the National Park Service. <br /><br/><br/>This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">Georgia Narratives</a> series.
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
60 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0062/audio-access" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0062/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ROOT xmlns="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms/ohms.xsd"><record id="00106781" dt="2021-11-10"><version>5.4</version><date value="" format="yyyy-mm-dd"/><date_nonpreferred_format>2015-03-05</date_nonpreferred_format><cms_record_id></cms_record_id><title>Interview with Claude Williams, March 5, 2015</title><accession>RBRL324FPP-0062</accession><duration>60 minutes</duration><collection_id>RBRL324FPP</collection_id><collection_name>First Person Project</collection_name><series_id></series_id><series_name></series_name><repository>Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia</repository><funding></funding><repository_url /><interviewee>Claude Williams</interviewee><interviewer>Chinyere Uziogwe</interviewer><file_name></file_name><sync></sync><sync_alt></sync_alt><transcript_alt_lang></transcript_alt_lang><translate>0</translate><media_id></media_id><media_url></media_url><mediafile><host>Kaltura</host><avalon_target_domain></avalon_target_domain><host_account_id></host_account_id><host_player_id></host_player_id><host_clip_id></host_clip_id><clip_format>audio</clip_format></mediafile><kembed><iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_g120fi8m&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&amp;flashvars[localizationCode]=en&amp;flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&amp;flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&amp;flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&amp;flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&amp;flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&amp;&wid=1_dxwzs2k0" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe></kembed><language></language><user_notes></user_notes><index><point><time>37</time><title>Growing up / Attending UGA during WWII </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>I was born in Tifton Georgia, 1922... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Williams talks about his name-sake and his father's work. He describes his first introduction to military work in 1943. Williams shares that the bombing of Pearl Harbor led to him be stationed at Fort McPherson before he was eventually stationed as reserve at UGA, where he studied history. He lists well-known football players he attended UGA with.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Charlie Trippi;Fort McPherson;Frank Sinkwich III;Great Depression;infantry;Pearl Harbor;William Oscar Payne</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>420</time><title>History class / Working in radio</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>But I'll give you a little insight into Dr. Payne... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Williams recalls stories about his history professor and previous head of the athletics department, William Oscar Payne at the University of Georgia. Williams explains how his experience at the University of Georgia inspired him to obtain a bachelors' in journalism after WWII ended. He talks about his previous familiarity with work in radio broadcasting.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>radio;University of Georgia (UGA);William Oscar Payne</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>840</time><title>The importance of Radio / Deployment to Europe </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>He listened every night to Amos 'n' Andy... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Williams talks about the routines of his childhood home growing up and explains the importance of radio during the time. He describes his time in Europe and shares the bleak outlook of US soldiers expected to fight in Japan. Williams talks about his wartime experience and how he believes his parents' prayers helped ensure his survival. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Amos 'n' Andy (Radio Show);Army of Occupation;atomic bomb;Harry S. Truman;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1223</time><title>The final days of WWII </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>An example I want to share with you... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Williams talks about the attack of the Siegfried during the final days of WWII. He explains the approach used by his unit as a lieutenant to gain land on German soil. Williams gives a play-by-play of the siege of the Siegfried line and recalls the death of a member of his unit. He explains the difference in the attitude of German civilians in war to those of Japanese citizens. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Germany;Kamikaze piolets;seige;Siegfried Line</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1622</time><title>The draft</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>And they'd fly it straight into...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>William talks about the commitment of the Japanese people during the war and his opinion on the bombing of Japan. He talks about his decision to volunteer to fight in WWII. William explains the drafting process and shares what he did after the war.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Atomic warfare;International Herald Tribune;James F. Byrnes;John F. Kennedy;Kamikaze piolets;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2019</time><title>Returning to the United States</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>On one of these occasions, I read... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>William details the process of diplomatic plane travel and shares stories about the first presidential pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Tift Myers. William recalls how he was eventually transported back to the US via a cargo ship.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>James F. Byrnes;Lieutenant Colonel Henry Tift Myers, Sr.;President Roosevelt;Queen Mary (ship);Sacred Cow (presidential plane);Tifton, Georgia;Walter F. George (senator)</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2400</time><title>Work in radio </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>What kind of work did you do...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Williams talks about returning home from WWII. He explains that he obtained a degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and got a job at the WRFC Radio Station in Athens, Georgia. He talks about his work in radio, changes to his community after WWII, and his positive experience upon returning home. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>American Forces Network (AFN);Athens;University of Georgia;WRFC Radio (Athens, Georgia);WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2830</time><title>Transitioning to civilian life</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Were there any parades when you arrived... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Williams talks about his immediate transition into civilian life. He talks about his family and shares his wish for more grandchildren. Williams describes the G.I Bill, unemployment benefits, and the barracks given by the government to returning soldiers at the time. William talks about the moment he first learned about the surrender of the Germans.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Athens;Austria;Franklin Delano Roosevelt;G.I Bill;Gainesville, Georgia;Germany;unemployment benefits;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>3208</time><title>The death of President Roosevelt / Benefits of military service </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>And of course, Franklin Roosevelt died...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Williams talks about the death of president Roosevelt and the effect it had on the public and the war effort. Williams shares his opinions over the decisions he made in his military career and explains the benefit of serving in the military for decision-making processes. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Franklin D. Roosevelt;Gainesville, Georgia;military service;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point></index><type>oral history</type><description></description><rel /><transcript>No transcript.</transcript><transcript_alt></transcript_alt><rights>Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.</rights><fmt>audio</fmt><usage></usage><userestrict>0</userestrict><xmllocation></xmllocation><xmlfilename></xmlfilename><collection_link>http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP/findingaid</collection_link><series_link></series_link></record></ROOT>
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
I. Georgia Narratives
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0062
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Claude Williams, March 5, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
United States--Veterans
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-05
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Claude Williams
Chinyere Uziogwe
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Description
An account of the resource
Claude Williams was born in Tifton, Georgia in 1922. He graduated from North Georgia College in 1942 and from the University of Georgia in 1944. Williams served in the European theater of WWII, after which he obtained a journalism degree from the UGA. Williams later moved to Gainesville, Georgia around 1948, where he worked and founded a variety of businesses. In this interview, Williams talks about his deployment, his work in radio, and his transition to civilian life. <br /><br/><br/>This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">Georgia Narratives</a> series.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Series II. S. Ernest Vandiver Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Series II consists of interviews conducted by Harold Paulk (Hal) Henderson, Sr., during his research for <em>Ernest Vandiver, Governor of Georgia</em> (2000). This series contains thirty-one interviews, some in several parts, conducted by Hal Henderson, and one interview conducted by Mel Steeley and Ted Fitzsimmons of West Georgia College documenting the political and personal life of Georgia governor S. Ernest Vandiver, Jr., 1959-1963.
Hyperlink
A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
17 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Stone Mountain, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/OHVAN19_Embry/transcript" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Transcript of Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL096HPH-OHVAN19
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Colonel Douglas Embry, March 16, 1994
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Douglas Embry
Hal Henderson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1994-03-16
Description
An account of the resource
Douglas Embry interviewed by Hal Henderson. Topics include Embry's time as editor of the Georgia Guardsman, Vandiver's accomplishments as adjutant general of the Georgia National Guard (including building armories), Vandiver's work ethic and "executive" leadership style, Vandiver's frugality, and Embry's impressions of Betty Vandiver.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Veterans
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
73 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0065/audio-access" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0065/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
2015-03-18
Interview with Conulus Scott, March 18, 2015
RBRL324FPP-0065
73 minutes
RBRL324FPP
First Person Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Conulus Scott
Chanice Porter
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=0_3dph4qqs&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_qhlhtjx7" width="400" height="285" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe>
25
Early life and overview of military service
So Mr. Scott, where were you born?
Scott describes growing up in Madison County, Georgia in the 1920s. He talks about attending school until 8th grade and working on his family's farm. He discusses being drafted into the military in 1942. He describes serving over three years in the Medical Corps where he took care of the wounded and the dead. He also highlights the danger of German submarines, recalling collecting bodies after submarine attacks and being attacked on his journey to Europe.
agriculture;education;France;Germany;Scotland;United States Sugar Corporation;World War Two (WWII)
620
Segregation in the military and experience guarding German troops
In your group, was it just all Black?
Scott describes being in an all-Black unit of the Medical Corps and talks about training at a segregated Fort Meade. He discusses the long boat journey to Europe, mentioning how the ship was integrated but individual companies were segregated. Scott explains how the hospital staff were also segregated, mentioning how he took care of both Black and white patients. He also talks about guarding German troops during the Nuremberg trials.
medical care;prisoners of war;racial discrimination;racial tensions;war
1355
Effects of D-Day
There was a D-Day--you remember that's when jumped over in France from England.
Scott describes alternating between guard duty and hospital work during World War II. He discusses guarding German prisoners and caring for the wounded after the Normandy landings. Scott talks about the first wave of D-Day causalities, describing sending wounded sailors and some of the bodies back to the United States. He also talks about air raids and living in tents.
airplanes;bombs;death;fox holes;medical care;prisoners of war
2160
Life after World War II
How did you feel after you discovered that the war was over?
Scott describes his excitement when the war was over. He talks about traveling back to Georgia. He discusses farming, attending school on the G.I. Bill, working at a sugar mill in Florida, and becoming a plumber. Scott describes working as a plumber until he was 94.
employment;Pacific War;peace;retirement;veteran;World War II (WWII)
2673
Experience farming and working at a sugar mill
When you were a farmer, before you left for the war, what crops did you farm?
Scott talks about farming cotton, corn, wheat, and oats before and after the war with his family. He describes seasonally working in a sugar mill in Florida and becoming an operator. He mentions how the mill hired both Black and white employees but was still segregated. He talks about attending school for farming on the G.I. Bill, and he mentions getting veteran's assistance.
agriculture;Aid And Attendance Benefits;Clewiston, Florida;employment;Royston. Georgia;United States Department of Veterans Affairs;United States Sugar Corporation;wages
3409
Military rations and interactions with German troops
Well I've got a couple more sort of smaller questions.
Scott describes the food he ate in the army. He talks about the difficulty of caring for the dead. Scott discusses talking with German prisoners and attempting to learn German. He also describes learning about the end of WWII in France, recalling the excited reactions of French citizens.
causalities;communication;English;language;prisoners of war
3783
Concentration camps and the Nuremberg trials
Well those are all of my questions today.
Scott describes hearing about concentration camps but never visiting one. He talks about being stationed in Nuremberg for the trials. Scott discusses the trial and death of Hermann Göring. He also describes the weather in Europe.
England;Holocaust;nurses;prisoners of war;Russia;suicide
oral history
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP/findingaid
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
I. Georgia Narratives
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0065
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Conulus Scott, March 18, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
United States--Veterans
United States--Armed Forces--Medical care
African Americans--History
African American veterans
Segregation
United States. Army--Soldiers
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-18
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conulus Scott
Chanice Porter
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States
Description
An account of the resource
Conulus Scott was born in Madison County, Georgia in 1920. He farmed and worked at a sugar mill before being drafted by the military in 1942. He served in the Medical Corps in Europe during the war. After the war, he became a plumber and continued to work in the sugar mill. In this interview, Scott discusses his experience in the military, describing segregation, guarding German troops, and working in hospitals. <br /><br/><br/>This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">Georgia Narratives</a> series.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
Interview with Curtis Jones, June 27, 2017
RBRL418GAA-016
RBRL418GAA
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Curtis Jones
Art Cain
Jewel Walker-Harps
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
1:|15(3)|27(5)|38(4)|49(11)|62(10)|77(12)|88(6)|99(10)|119(3)|131(9)|158(1)|174(8)|192(11)|208(1)|222(13)|236(1)|248(5)|263(10)|278(2)|297(5)|309(9)|322(16)|337(4)|347(12)|361(1)|375(5)|388(8)|401(12)|414(3)|435(8)|452(7)|471(6)|484(10)|501(11)|518(5)|530(6)|547(4)|560(11)|573(5)|590(1)|603(1)|618(3)|634(7)|656(12)|668(4)|684(12)|697(7)|713(8)|727(7)|743(2)|755(12)|771(2)|783(6)|796(9)|811(8)|824(8)|836(1)|850(15)|860(13)|882(3)|897(2)|910(7)|931(5)|949(2)|963(10)
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_ayrsi14o&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_pgehm5hn" width="400" height="285" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe>
47
Mandatory and voluntary integration
I am Curtis Jones, superintendent of the Bibb County School System...
Jones talks about how his parents' careers affected his upbringing. Jones recalls his experience in being one of the first black students to integrate into Sacred Heart Elementary. Jones relates his transition to Junior High School and talks about some of the friends he had growing up. Jones details the process of mandatory integration and his first days attending the newly integrated Griffin High School.
Bibb County Public School District;Griffin High School;mandatory integration;Sacred Heart Elementary School;Spaulding Junior High School
511
Griffin High School experience
So I will tell you what my thoughts are...
Jones describes the differences between voluntary and mandatory integration, and his experience with both. Jones recalls how his mother helped him with the transition to attending a white school. Jones mentions how his experience at Griffin High School had an impact on his future career. Jones talks about his decision to run for president of the student body at his school, and how he built a following among the students for his campaign.
Fairmount High School;Griffin High School;Griffin-Spaulding County;mandatory integration;Sacred Heart Elementary;Virginia Ball;voluntary integration
957
Football and the Army
Athletics did that, and when...
Jones talks about how his experience on Griffin High School's football team assisted him in gathering support for his student presidential campaign and also influenced his decision to go into the Army. Jones recalls how he came to attend West Point Military Academy. Jones mentions his friends in high school and how they impacted his high school experience.
Air Force;Griffin High School;military;United States Military Academy West Point
1329
Integrating Griffin High School / Returning to Griffin
Now, I'll tell you when there was competition...
Jones recalls how the consolidation of the Griffin and Fairmount High School football teams spurred competition, as players from the historically black and white schools initially viewed each other as rivals. Jones talks about returning to Griffin, Georgia after graduating from West Point Military Academy and how he came to lead the ROTC branch at Griffin High School. Jones mentions how he became the first black principle of Griffin High.
competition;Fairmount High School;Griffin High School;integration;Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC)
1772
Becoming the Superintendent of the Griffin School System
So when I joined the staff in '97...
Jones relates how he rose from the position of ROTC leader to the position of principal of Griffin High School in 2005 to finally the position of Griffin Spalding Superintendent. Jones shares how he was received by the white staff at Griffin High School. Jones adds how his experience attending Griffin High School eased his experience of transitioning into the role as principal.
Griffin High School;Walter Pyron;William Walker
2169
Administration issues
And the principal who was going...
Jones talks about how opening Spalding High School proved to be a contentious subject for the employees of Griffin High School. Jones relates an experience he had with an angry mother who felt threatened by the majority African American administration of Griffin High School. Jones mentions how he dealt with a problem among staff concerning dress code.
Griffin High School;Spalding High School;Todd McGee;Walter Pyron
2601
Experience in the Army / Integration and merging
So, in the military, I was an...
Jones talks about his twenty year career in the military. Jones explains the process of merging the staff of Fairmount and Griffin High School. Jones emphasizes how creating separate schools for grades 6-8 assisted with the distribution of staff after mandatory integration. Jones shares how this integration method was also applied for the sports teams of Griffin High School.
Albany State, Georgia;Fairmount High School;Fort Benning, Georgia;Fort Leavenworth;Germany;Griffin High School
3080
Family and career experiences
Mom and Dad came from Texas...
Jones talks about his upbringing and recalls his experiences visiting his grandparents. Jones talks about his family's history and his father's career in the army. Jones shares how his parents upheld their beliefs in the Civil Rights movement in their decision to allow him to integrate to Spalding Middle School. Jones relates some of the decisions he had to make as superintendent of the Griffin school system.
Kiwanis Club of Griffin;Sacred Heart Elementary School;Texas;Trinity CME Church;University of Georgia
3569
Concluding thoughts
Here's a story about Dr. Bradley...
Jones recalls some of the interactions he had with Dr. Bradley, while trying to become the principal of Griffin High School. Jones shares how, despite his lack of formal education in the way of administration, he managed to make improvements in the Griffin school system.
Dr. Bradley;education;Griffin, Georgia
Oral history
rbrl418gaa-016_jones ART CAIN:Okay, it is June 27th, about two o'clock, in 2017, and we're here in the conference room for the Center for Urban Agriculture. We're here with Colonel Jones, who is the former superintendent of -- should say Curtis Jones, who's the former superintendent of Griffin Spalding County schools and currently superintendent of schools in Macon, Georgia. My name is Art Cain. I'm here at the University of Georgia in the Office of Continuing Education. CURTIS JONES:Hi. I'm Curtis Jones, superintendent of the Bibb County school system. I'm also a resident of Griffin Spalding County, and I am a former superintendent here for six years. JEWEL WALKER-HARPS:Jewel Walker-Harps, president of the Griffin branch NAACP, and cosponsor of the African American Oral History Project. ELLEN BAUSKE:I'm Ellen Bauske. I'm with the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture. RICHIE BRAMAN:I'm Richie Braman. And I'm also with the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture. CAIN:Okay, I'll start. Curtis, I have considered you a literal icon here in Griffin. You've had many distinguished accomplishments over your career, being the first African American principal at Griffin High School, first African American superintendent of schools here in Griffin. Prior to that a distinguished career in our military. And now currently superintendent of Bibb County schools. And what we want you to do is just kind of reflect back and tell us how you got -- how you were able to be able to set yourself up to have such accomplishments as you've had over the course of your career. JONES:I appreciate that. Truthfully it's not about me, it's about a lot of folks. And I'll tell you it begins with my mom and my dad. Mom was a teacher here in Griffin Spalding. She taught at -- as far as I can remember the first school was Annie Shockley Elementary. And I'll tell you, being a child of a teacher at the school can be hard, right, Richie? We were able to get in trouble, and whenever I got in trouble in second grade, they said, "Boy, I'm going to tell your mama." I learned to get straight. I will tell you that my dad was a minister here at Trinity CME Church. And because of that it created a foundation. After going through an experience at Anne Street and being in segregated schools for grades one through four, voluntary segregation -- integration occurred, and I was allowed to go to Sacred Heart Elementary School. And while at Sacred Heart I learned a lot of different skills. I remember my brother, my sister, and I were usually the minorities in our class, and it was the first time you had to wear a uniform. At that time it was a white shirt, navy blue pants, and black or brown shoes. As you've already mentioned though, I learned to wear a uniform for 20 years after that, when I joined the army. That became though part of the experience that my parents put us through, because while I stayed at Sacred Heart for two years, what I found was that when it was time to go to seventh grade, I had to make a decision. Was I going to go to what was called Spalding Junior High or go to Kelsey? One was a majority black school, one was majority white. We currently at that time lived in Barnesville, and we commuted back and forth every day. And so like most kids I just turned to the people who were in my class and said, "Where are you going?" And the majority of them said Spalding Junior High. So I went too. I think at that age it was trying to be, you know, know who your friends are and go. I also will tell you though that I think part of it started with my parents allowing me to play football when I was in sixth grade. Eleven years old, never played organized sports, but I will tell you that I still remember this, but at the end of that first season I got the most valuable player award. (laughs) And I still remember what it looks like. But it was different, because I truthfully had more fun practicing than playing the football games. Practice, you know who your friends are, you're competing with them, you talk to them about what you're doing. After that I went to junior high, and that was a very unique experience. And I will tell you it was unique in several ways. There was one individual named Wayne K. who was -- I'd known when I was in first grade. And then Wayne and I separated. We came back together in seventh. And Wayne was in advanced classes and I was in regular classes. But we were both able to compete. Later on Wayne went on to Howard University and became a lawyer. Another person I met when I was there was Randal. Randal came from Pike County but Randal also went on and became a state legislator. And -- WALKER-HARPS:Randal Mangham? JONES:Yeah. Randal Mangham. And so he and I became friends at that point. It was interesting when we went through that. But learning football and learning who people were and creating relationships I think was key for me at that point, because it was interesting, but during that time of voluntary integration, I remember in eighth grade I ran for student body president. And I was riding home in the car with my mom one day. She said, "Boy, you ran for president of that school?" (laughs) And I said, "How did you know?" And she said, "I know. You going to win?" I said, "Mom, I don't know." Turned out I came in second. But it was surprising to Mom that, you know, we even came that close at all. And she also thought it was funny because -- I'll say this to you, Jewel -- I ran. Randal ran. Wayne ran. A girl named Michelle R. ran as well. A bunch of us ran. We were just kids going to school. And then I think, Art, what happened for me also though was I went to Griffin High. And Griffin High, when now you had mandatory integration of schools, and that for me was in the tenth grade. And what I remember distinctly about that summer is this. At the time the integration of schools was based on the seventy-thirty percentage. Seventy percent black, 30 percent -- no, 70 percent white, 30 percent black. And there was a guy who I knew, Danny Wayne. Danny Wayne was the copresident of that class. And Danny Wayne was another student who was with me at Annie Shockley. He was two years ahead. He was a person I looked up to. I said, "Like man, I want to grow up and be like Danny." So I come back after all these years and I see him for the very first time and he's copresident. And Danny is writing on the blackboard. And he puts twelfth grade seven white three -- seven Griffin High three Fairmont. And then he -- eleventh grade, seven, three. He got to tenth grade. And he wrote six parentheses one, three. And I remember sitting there looking at that and saying, "What?" And a friend of mine, Tony Head, who I played with later, said, "Curtis, why are you looking at that like that?" I said, "Why'd he put six, one in parentheses?" He says, "Because it's seven white but you came from Spalding. They voted you in so they're trying to figure out how to count you." (laughs) And I felt like holy cow. And so Danny then went over -- yes, sir. CAIN:I just -- JONES:Am I talking too much? CAIN:Can you tell us a little bit (inaudible) continue but I just wanted you to tell us a little bit about that distinction between voluntary integration and mandatory I guess. JONES:Okay. So I will tell you what my thoughts are. Mom was a teacher. And I remember when I was going to Annie Shockley, which was an all-black school -- now it's called Anne Street -- Mom was a teacher there. And I think teachers were required to send their children to public schools. Was -- that was my impression. But that year Mom said, "Curtis, you don't have to go to Anne Street any -- to Annie Shockley anymore, we want to put you in Sacred Heart. And -- but it's voluntary. You don't have to go." That was what she said. And I said, "Is anybody else going?" And I said, "I don't know." And so that whole idea of voluntary was you were able then to go to a white school if you were black or a black school if you were white. But you volunteered to do that. And really it kicked in for me when -- between that Spalding Junior High and Fairmont. Because I didn't know at the time there were two different middle schools. I just didn't. I just stayed in my class or stayed in my lane. And so when we got there it was probably -- if it was seventy-thirty when I got to high school, it must have been ninety-ten (laughs) when I was in junior high. But I will tell you, the people who were there wanted to be there. And we kind of band together a little bit. But it was interesting. When I got to tenth grade there was no longer that option. And I'll be honest with you. My experience now tells me that Griffin Spalding did it well. They decided to have one school where all seventh graders went, one school for all eighth graders, one school for all ninth graders. And then one high school for grades 10, 11, and 12. That didn't happen all over the South but it happened here in Griffin Spalding. And I remember my mom telling me -- she came back from a board meeting and she said, "You know," and she named the principal, he was the principal up at Beaverbrook. And he just said, "You know, we've been dragging our feet on this for about 15 years, they just told us it's time to do it, so we're going to do it." CAIN:So it was that transition from that voluntary period until -- JONES:To mandatory. CAIN:-- full. Yeah. JONES:Full integration. WALKER-HARPS:The law insisted that you do it when it became mandatory. When we consider prior to then when we -- teachers and students transferred that it was voluntary. But I never did because I went -- and I didn't volunteer, I went because -- JONES:(laughs) You were told. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:Well, you know, the thing that was interesting is my mom was told that same year that I went to Sacred Heart. She ended up being assigned to Beaverbrook and I remember she was scared. And it's interesting when you're a child and you see your mom worried about that. Didn't know about the north side of Griffin or Spalding County and she ended up going there for that one year. And I remember hearing, heard Mom and Dad just talking about it. But she went. And my impression was -- now this is where I may get in trouble -- the black schools picked who they thought were some of the very best teachers that would go, that would not embarrass them. And then later my impression was that some of the white teachers who went to the black schools may not have been the very best but they were some -- the ones with the best attitudes about I can go and I can make a difference. And that ended up being key. Part of what made it work for me though was Mom. Mom went to Beaverbrook. Later she went to Jackson Road with a principal, Gladys Harden. Stayed there for about 20 years I think. WALKER-HARPS:At least. JONES:Became a part of that family. And was special. But I think that experience in Griffin High worked for me. When you talk about being the first black principal or the first black ROTC, I will tell you it started for me back in high school. In high school when I was in eleventh grade I ran for student body president. Truthfully it was I think having white friends and black friends, playing football, being somewhat, you know, known. And that same guy who was with me who said, "Curtis, they're trying to figure out what to do with you," that was Tony. He got elected vice president. I got elected president. And after that my mom came to me and said, "I'm just surprised. I never thought that would happen at this point in time." But I also remember a Ms. Ball. Ms. Ball was the counselor at the school. WALKER-HARPS:Virginia Ball. JONES:Virginia Ball. I wasn't sure how much names I could use. I can use them? WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:Okay. Virginia Ball. Had been my second grade teacher when she was Ms. Hodo at Annie Shockley. Then when I was getting ready to go to fifth grade she'd gotten married, became Ms. Ball, was going to be my fifth grade teacher. Well, I get to high school, and there she is the counselor. And I remember Ms. Ball saying, "Curtis, you're fortunate, you're going to be president of the student body. But you need to work something out. What's going to happen when you leave? We always need to have some kind of representation. And so I think you ought to do something like the president is black, the vice president is white, or vice versa. But they need to do that." I said, "Ms. Ball, how can I do anything about that?" She says, "You're the president of the student body, the first one that we've had, just talk to the principal." And so I did. I went and talked to Coach Gray and I just shared that idea with him and he said, "Curtis, why would we do that?" And my response was, "You run for president of the United States, you're on the ticket, let them run on tickets. And doesn't have to be mandatory but if things are like they are I think people are going to see diversity as a good thing." I was surprised but when I came back to Griffin after 20 years in the military, people running for student body council at Griffin High were running on tickets. One black, one white. And that's who was winning. Not mandatory. But people were still electing that way. That was surprising to me. CAIN:Just to back up a little bit about your run for president, student body president at the time. Was that -- how did you -- because you were kind of in two worlds. How did you cultivate the kind of relationships in both worlds that allowed you -- allowed for you to get that kind of vote from your student body colleagues? JONES:I think in a lot of ways it was athletics. When I played football I started off in the city league. And back in that day elementary schools had their own football teams. And so we played and I learned who the players were, they learned who I was. That second year they stopped having school teams but they just had rec teams and you signed up. But truthfully the athletes knew each other. And that group of us in that particular year, we were pretty special, I'll be honest. We got together in eighth grade. So and that just became the nucleus I would say. But that group of us, we stayed together. We were undefeated in eighth. Undefeated in ninth. About four of us made the varsity as sophomores. And then when we became seniors our team went nine, one, and one, won the region championship, beat R. E. Lee for the first time in recent history and people were happy. And I just think it was just a special group that came together. Randy Pass was on the team, ended up playing for the New York Giants, went to Georgia Tech on a scholarship. Tony Head ended up going to Georgia Tech, doing very well. Terry Willis, who was -- went to Fort Valley. David Wolfoff, who became a city policeman here, went to Fort Valley on a scholarship. Setter Jun, Keith Tubble. I mean we were just -- we were pretty good. But I think athletics did that. And when I got to West Point what I learned was that it's on those fields when you're struggling with something that is unique -- not unique, but common to everybody. You form a friendship. And I think that happened for us at that time. We were special. I'll tell you now. It was scary. I remember my sophomore year when we were playing one of the very first games. Might have been like the third game of the season. It was a home game and there was this guy who was walking on this guy's yard and he got killed. Shot, because he was trespassing. After that they changed all our games to day games. We started playing on Saturdays. Coach Dowis, who was our head football coach, Johnny Goodrum, who was an assistant coach, made a difference though. That next year they took us up to summer training camp and they said, "Look, forget what's happening there. This is about us and what we're going to do." And that training experience for us just bonded us in a way that you can't imagine. You ever seen the movie Remember the Titans? CAIN:Mm-hmm. JONES:It was just like that experience where we went up and went to camp and we came back. And we were just unique. So anyway I think living in both worlds worked for me. It made it easier for me to then decide to go to West Point. That was probably life-changing for me in more ways than I realized. Now I'll tell you, I only did one year of ROTC in high school. Didn't want to be in the military. (laughs) No. Didn't want to wear a uniform. But West Point was unique. And when my dad found out about the opportunity for me to go, because Congressman Jack Flynt gave me a nomination, he said, "Son, if that works for you that's the thing to do. I'm trying to save money for you to go to college. But if you do this it'll help us out a whole lot." And that by itself was unique. Just, you know, sometimes it just turns out how things happen. I was in a French class. Mr. Russell was my French teacher. And Mr. Russell said to me -- he was absent one day -- and he said, "Curtis, what did you say with that substitute teacher who was in here?" And I said, "Sir, I didn't say anything. (laughs) I didn't do anything. I'm sorry." He says, "No no no, it's good." And he was out again and she came back. Turned out later I found out she was really a vocational teacher that they had sent in. And -- but we were talking about race and issues like that. And she just came up to me one day and said, "What are you going to do when you graduate?" I said, "I think I want to fly airplanes, maybe be a pilot." And she said, "You think you can do that?" And I said, "I guess." So she said, "I got a person I want you to meet and I'm -- he's going to give you a call." That person was Jack Flynt. She had been his teacher. And so he called, asked me to come out to his house, he lived down there on Poplar Street. And he told me. He says, "Curtis, you impressed my former teacher. I still listen to her. She asked me to give you a nomination for West Point. I don't -- I mean for the Air Force Academy. I don't have any. But if you're willing to go to Military Academy I can get you one of those. And if that doesn't work out for you, I have a friend named John Conyers," a guy from I think Michigan, or Pennsylvania. CAIN:No, Detroit. JONES:Detroit, Michigan. "He can get you a nomination to the Air Force Academy if you like that." And I said, "Yes, sir." I'm thinking like man. That was how I ended up going. But West Point changed and it was all because of football and being willing to work with people. So a long answer to a short question. CAIN:Great answer. WALKER-HARPS:You talked about several young men who went to Spalding with you. Did you bond as a unit or was there rivalry among you? JONES:Well, Randal was on the football team and Randal Mangham is the one who became a state legislator and he and I ended up being -- we continued to be friends. With Wayne, Wayne and I had been -- Wayne came to Anne Street -- Annie Shockley -- for like two weeks. His mom was my first grade teacher. And he then left and went to Moore Elementary and attended school there until we got to junior high. There was no competition among us. Wayne was just smart. I was an athlete. And so I don't think we had any kind of competition among ourselves. What I learned is that there was safety. And so sometimes you see somebody in the hallway and they would just give you a look or a nod and you felt like it was okay. I remember though there was a -- in middle school, you know how you have bullies? There was this one family moved in. And they were fighting everybody. (laughs) They were fighting everybody. There was one black boy there who was, what's his name, James Leeks. James said, "Look, I'm not going to fight you." But these three brothers that moved in, they were Caldwells, they were going to fight everybody. And so they did. And we had a big fight in the gym between James and the middle Caldwell boy, first name was Joe. And it just happened. You know, but to be truthful, whenever that happens, teachers aren't around. (laughs) Principals aren't around. It just happens. And everybody knew that fight was going to happen. And when it was over, I remember the Caldwell boy looked at me and said, "All right, I'm going to fight you tomorrow." (laughs) I looked. And I said, "Why?" He says, "Because I'm going to be king of the hill." And I said, "Okay. You can be king of the hill." He says, "That's it? We're not going to fight?" And I said, "No." He threw his hands up in the air and said, "Yay, I'm the best." And for him that was a big deal. So that's what he wanted to do. But there was no competition for us. You know, we were just trying to make honor roll, trying to do well. And that's just -- that was what it was. But again when I played football I'll tell you this. Mom was driving a Simca, and practice would be after school. And I could see the car up on the hill every day just waiting to -- waiting for practice to be over so I can get my stinky behind in the car and ride 17 miles to get home. But there was no competition for that. Now I'll tell you when there was competition was when we integrated the schools in high school. That first year when we came together, you have to think about it this way. You had two football teams, one black, one white, one Fairmont, one Griffin High. And you had two returning quarterbacks, two returning centers. Everybody was a starter who was coming back. And the question became how's that going to work. Johnny Goodrum, who ended up being assistant coach, had been -- and Coach Hiram Whitaker had been the head football coach over there. They made him the assistant coach for Coach Dowis. Trying to pull staff together, trying to pull teams together. I mean that was hard. It was very hard. Because people thought they were going to start. For me it ended up being a little bit more difficult. And I'll tell you why. Those black boys who were at Fairmont, they didn't know me. This was just a little black boy who was over there playing with those white boys, who can't play. And they were going to show me they could play. And I tell you what. (laughs) We had drills. And they lit me up. Day after day after day. But eventually I think I won them over by just keep -- I just kept coming back and just kept trying to learn. And I'll say this. Coach Goodrum, who was the backs coach at the time, he was setting me up too. Curtis, go over there and run the ball. Oowee. But after that, turned out to be okay. Here's what else happened though, Art, that made things work for me. After going to West Point and coming back after 20 years, and I found out that Mom was sick, and she needed help transitioning from the hospital to come home, and for me it was a transitional period. I had three children. We wanted them to learn their grandparents. I came back to Griffin. And I went into a meeting with one of my friends down in Barnesville, Carl Ogletree. And Carl said, "Curtis, go find out about ROTC in Griffin. My wife is a teacher and she can find out if we can start one here in Lamar County. You go up to Griffin and find out how to do it." Well, I did. And in Griffin they told me, "It's a federal thing, you just can't start one. They're not starting any more. But our guy Colonel Imes is getting ready to retire. Why don't you come interview for that job?" And I said, "Like whoa, okay. I don't have a uniform." "You don't need a uniform, just come on up." This was like on a Tuesday. I got home, I got a phone call. "This is Colonel Imes. Is this Curtis Jones?" "Yes, sir." "I understand that you're interested in Junior ROTC." "Well, I really don't know a lot about Junior ROTC." "Well, I'm getting ready to retire. I've been here for 20 years." And I'll tell you that caused me pause. And I'll tell you why. When I was in high school at Griffin High ROTC started in 1966. Major Pelt came aboard in 1967. And then they had a couple other people that came on. But I'm talking about in '97 when I got back, Imes had been there for 20 of those 30 years. That's how long he had been at Griffin High. He was an institution. And he called me up, interviewed me, and said, "Look, I'm going to recommend you for the job." As I was getting ready to leave I saw this guy. And he was a black NCO. And he said, "Hey, sir, how you doing?" I said, "I'm fine, how are you?" And he said, "I'm good." He said, "You Curtis Jones?" And I said, "Yes, sir, I am." "One that played football at Griffin High, number 21?" "Yes, sir, I am." "One that used to play for the Saints back when you were in the sixth grade?" "Yes, sir, I am, how do you know that?" He said, "I used to be a recruiter back in Griffin, I saw you then. My name is Lee McRae. And you up here interviewing for this job?" I said, "Yes, sir, I am." He said, "I think you're going to get it because they're looking for somebody from Griffin to come on back and you're just a Griffin kind of guy." Because of Lee I think I helped get the job. Went in for an interview with the principal, who was Mike McLemore, was the incoming principal. And Larry White was the outgoing principal. They did a joint interview. McLemore said, "I'm going to recommend you for the position," so we started out together. And I'll just tell you that that just turned out to be a blessing for me with Lee McRae and how that turned out. But again I think it was part of having my being in both worlds because when I found out I was going to be recommended to be the principal -- this is four years later -- I needed some recommendations. And he was one of them. And so was Dr. McLemore. But I will tell you something that worked for me. Having done ROTC for four years at the school, and having done the interviews, I'll be honest, I was scared. I mean Griffin High was a big school. It was like 1,900 kids, one of the biggest in the state. And people used to come to Griffin to see what a school looks like. And this is from a guy who's been in the army for 20 years but didn't really know a whole lot about what to do. I'll tell you Mom said to me, "They going to make you the principal? What are they thinking about?" (laughs) I said, "Well, Mom." I said, "I don't know." And so what happened was I ended up interviewing, got the position. And during one of the very first meetings we had -- this is another thing that worked for me -- we went out on the football field to talk about what happens during a bomb threat. And when we were coming back in all the black staff peeled off to the right and went down the 600 -- down the 800 hallway into a room. And Doc Richard Beaton was walking in with me, and he said, "Where are all those folks going?" And Kay Moore, who was my secretary, about to be my secretary, said, "Oh, the black staff wants to meet with Dr. -- with Colonel Jones." And he said, "Well, I want to go." And she said, "No, you can't go, this is just for them." And he said, "Oh. Okay." Well, he said, "When you finish that you come talk to me." I said, "Doc, I'll come see you." So I went into the room. And they said to me, "Look, you're the first black principal for Griffin High School. We want you to be successful. We don't want you to do anything stupid. We're going to support you. We're going to do our very best. We ask that you do your very best as well." And I said, "Okay." And we kind of came to that common understanding. Never met like that again. Never had that conversation again. Until I was asked to speak at a black history program and I shared that story probably, I don't know, it may have been 16 years later. Where that group just said, "We're going to support you." And I can tell you I can remember occasions now that may not seem significant where they helped me. I'll give you one. I was asked to make morning announcements when I was the principal. And, you know, going through school, you learn phonics and how to speak, but there was this word that I said that was wrong. I would always say, "And this," how did I say it? I said, "And this Saurday I want you guys to come in and talk to us about how to do this." Or, "This Saurday we're going to do this." Jewel McCann was one of my English teachers. She came down and she said, "Look. If you're going to be principal of this school you're going to stop saying Saurday. It's Saturday." I said, "Yes, ma'am." That was the small kinds of things they did to help me out that, you know, in some ways will take away your credibility but in other ways -- and so she helped me with that. BAUSKE:I'm confused about ROTC and principal. JONES:Okay. BAUSKE:Can you talk about that (inaudible). JONES:What happened? BAUSKE:Yes. JONES:So when I joined the staff in '97 the principal made me the chairperson of the discipline committee for school improvement. The next year, he made me the -- a -- I guess I was the cochair a second time of that committee. Then my third year, he put me in charge of the school improvement. And that fourth year he retired. And so based on that and working on SAT improvement, the superintendent and others asked me if I'd apply for the position. And so I then moved from after four years of doing ROTC, I became the principal of the high school. And then after being principal of the high school for four years I was talking to Walter Powry, who was then the assistant superintendent. And I was saying, "Dr. Powry, you know, I've been doing this now for about four years, I'm trying to understand. Where am I going?" And he says, "Curtis, I'm probably going to retire in about two years and I think you're going to be taking my place." Turned out he retired that year, and I applied for that position and I got it as well. BAUSKE:And what year was it? JONES:That was 2005. So I was assistant super -- so ROTC for four years, high school principal for four years, and then I became the assistant superintendent for administrative services for four years. And then after that I applied to become the superintendent and I got that as well. That was another story too. I'll just give you the short part about help. I was a member of Trinity CME Church, that's where my dad had been a pastor. Johnny Goodrum was a member of that church as well as some other folks who were educators. And one day I was -- got a phone call from Johnny Goodrum, and he said, "Curtis, can you meet me down at the church?" And I said, "Yeah, coach, I can meet you down there." Told you he was my previous coach. He says, "There's some people want to meet you, they understand you're going to be -- you're applying to be superintendent and they just want to talk to you." "Okay." I told my wife about it and she said, "What are they going to do?" I said, "Dear, I don't know." So I went down to the church and inside the church there was William Matchett, Dr. -- was the principal at Moore -- WALKER-HARPS:Nesbith. JONES:Dr. William Nesbith. Johnny Goodrum. Mr. Walker. WALKER-HARPS:William Walker. JONES:William Walker. Were there. And Coach Goodrum. And Coach Goodrum introduced them all. Truthfully I'd never really met any of them before except Goodrum at the time. And kind of knew Matchett. And he just told me, said, "They want to talk to you because you're going to apply to be the superintendent." And it turned out they didn't -- I thought it was going to be an interview. It turned out them just telling me stories about what happened with them as they were administrators and going through and lessons that they learned. So I was there for about an hour and a half just listening to these wise guys tell me about what they had learned and some of their experiences. And then after that I told my wife about it and she said, "What'd they ask you?" And I told her they just talked to me. Later I found out though that that group had actually called the superintendent and some board members and they endorsed me for being superintendent. And Jesse Bradley, who at that time was the superintendent, said, "Curtis, I want to be honest with you. You got people on the north side of town and people on the south side of town. You got people on the north side of town, that's the black side, and they're supporting you. You got people on the south side of town," and they're supporting this other internal candidate who was there who turned out -- who was white. And he says, "But the advantage you have is you also got some people on the south side of town calling for you as well." He says, "I don't know if that's going to make a big difference or not but it means something to me." And I ended up getting the position. So that ended up being unique as well. And I'll be honest. As superintendent I fully felt supported by everybody. And I was worried there for a while, you know. Ms. Harps scared me for a while. She was president of the NAACP, I said, "Oh Lord, what is she going to call and ask me? What do I have to do? I'm trying to raise the graduation rate. Just give me some time." (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:You had advantage. Your mom and I were very very good friends. And your dad had been a good friend. JONES:And he was also friends with Calvin Hill, who was my ninth grade science teacher. Remember I told you when I was in first grade, when I was in elementary? I was in tenth grade biology class with some students. And I'll be honest. Biology was hard. And Mr. Hill was the teacher. And I remember one day we were getting ready to do some -- cut some frogs and that kind of stuff. And people were just acting silly. And so I started acting silly with them. He just grabbed me and took me aside, said, "Look, boy, I know your daddy, you keep that up, I'm going to call him." And I said, "You know my dad?" He said, "I know Curtis. And I know Roberta." And I said, "Ooh." (laughs) Didn't get out of line anymore after that. So for me I think that helped me out some so -- CAIN:Can I -- WALKER-HARPS:How well were you received by the white staff at Griffin High? Because that was their first experience having to receive orders from a black person? And particularly a black man. Were there challenges? JONES:Well, yes and no. So the first part of it is Mr. Johnston, who had been the French teacher when I was in high school, Jim, James Johnston, was one of the ones who wrote a letter of endorsement for me for going into the position. He had been Evelyn's teacher when we were in high school, and so he still remembered, he was one of the ones who I visited when I came back. Mark Fenezee had been my ninth grade science teacher, and so now Mark was the head of the counseling department. There was also Ms. Jackson, who was my ninth -- my tenth grade math teacher, who was there for that one year, who introduced me to Evelyn, who I -- became my girlfriend and my -- now my wife. And so I was not a total stranger to some. And so that helped when I first got there. And when I became the principal, because I'd been on the staff and had led the leadership, there -- most of them were willing to come on board. We had another issue that divided us more so than being a black principal, and that is that we were opening Spalding Junior High -- Spalding High School at that point in time. And the principal who was going to be for Spalding High was located in that building and was actively recruiting people. And at this point now I'm going to be the principal and he's telling people, "Come on over with us to Spalding High School because we're going to have a great school." And people are like, "Well, wait a minute, you saying we're not great?" And so -- and well, you're great, but you're going to stay here, we're going to go do this other thing. And it was like oh. And so it just divided the staff. And it started before we even had opened Spalding High. And so that was difficult because I'm now the person who's going to be the principal of the school. Todd is the -- yeah. Well, put his name -- was -- WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) it's okay. JONES:Todd McGee was going to be the principal of Spalding High. And he pulled in one of our assistant principals who was out who was making this. That's what was hard. And then trying to figure out how do you divide a staff and keep things going. And wondering are you losing -- and who you're losing. It turned out later, what I realized is that a lot of the people who went to Spalding had come from Spalding Junior High and were ninth grade teachers and they had never really felt as if they were a full part of the staff at Griffin High anyway. And so they were able to go and create that environment, that school that they wanted to have. Now here's a story though that was hard. One day I was principal of the school, and I walked out of the main office into the hallway and I looked down. And classes were going on. And I saw this group of people come out of the building. And it was a mother, her child, assistant principal, teacher. And the mother said, "Look, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. I'm just going down. I'm going to see the principal." And the boy looked up and said, "Well, there's the principal right there." And she says, "I ain't going to talk to him, I'm going downtown." And so they left and went downtown. Wally Snell, who was my assistant principal, and Clint Middleton came, who was the teacher, came, told me what had happened. They said, "Son is not doing well, he's failing, we tried to tell them that. But, you know, they wanted to talk to you but we just said going downtown." So they did. Little while later I got a phone call from Walter Powry and Walter said, "Curtis, just had this parent come see me. And she's not happy. But I told her she got to follow chain of command, she's coming back to see you. But I'm going to tell you now race is a part of this issue." And I said, "Oh, okay." So I thought about it. She was white, her son was white. Clint Middleton was a black male. Wally Snell, the assistant principal, was a black male. I was the principal of the school, a black male. She got downtown and saw the assistant superintendent Walter Powry, a black male. (laughs) She came back in and saw me. What I did though was Jamie Cassidy, who was an assistant principal I had, was on campus, and I called Jamie in, who was white. We met, we had a great conversation. But the conversation started off with the student looking at me and saying, "Colonel Jones, just want to tell you, I don't really have a problem with Negroes. I mean I have a lot of friends who are." And I said, "No problem." And so that was -- we had situations like that, I guess, you know, but Cassidy was great, he helped that environment. And I'll tell you I learned something. People want to take care of their kids the very best they can. And they just want to believe that somebody understands. And what that parent was looking for was somebody who she thought understood. For her that was Cassidy. WALKER-HARPS:I would think that more so than race your military background and your procedure, your attitude would have had more effect than race. JONES:(laughs) WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) after having come back from the military, and your sternness, and your being so adamant about what you believed. JONES:Well, that did get me in trouble. We were coming back from a meeting in Macon one day. And it was my first year. And my secretary called and said, "Colonel Jones, I have a petition from some teachers." "A petition?" "Yes." "What is it about?" "They don't think you're enforcing the dress code with students and so they're mad. And so they --" "How many people signed that?" "Oh, 25, 30." "Are you serious?" "Yes, sir." I said, "Tell you what. We're going to have a faculty meeting. We're on our way back now. I want everybody to meet me on the JROTC rifle range." "The rifle range?" I said, "The rifle range. I want you to take the chairs in the rifle range, I want you to divide them in half, I want them facing each other, one on one side of the room, one on the other. We'll be back in about 35 minutes." Got back to Griffin High School. Ms. Moore met me at the door and said, "They're all down on the rifle range." (laughs) I said, "Okay." Went down to the rifle range. My assistant principals were waiting for me. I walked in. I said, "Look, I see this petition. People say that they're upset about dress code. I am too but here's the problem. If you have a child for first period and the child is not in dress code, you didn't do anything about it, and that makes second period, third period, fourth period, and fifth period teachers all upset because they think everybody's breaking dress code just because you didn't enforce it. So right now in this room we got the people on this side who are the ones who signed this petition. And on this side is those who didn't. I will do whatever it is you want me to do, I work for you, so here's the deal. All of you who think we're not enforcing dress code, you need to talk to these on this side about what it is you need to do. And you-all finished having that conversation come get me and my assistant principals, we'll be waiting on you in the hallway. Just tell me how you want to do it." I turned around, I started walking out. And one of the teachers said, "Colonel Jones, can I ask you a question?" I said, "No. You need to ask them over there." We walked on out. About 5 minutes later, maybe 10 minutes later, Dr. Beaton came out and said, "We worked it out. We have a way. We're going to enforce the dress code now. We understand." And the other thing that we did though was at that point we were starting to record all of our faculty meetings because football coaches couldn't be there. And so later on I went back to look at the tape. And this one teacher I had said, "Turn off that camera, they're trying to turn us against each other." (laughs) So but so that sternness did get me in trouble. I still have teachers today who remind me of taking them down to the rifle range. But that was the way we tried to approach things. Just straightforwardly and dealt with it. Now if I had to do it over again I may take them to the cafeteria. But the rifle range (laughs) -- WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:But I wanted them close. I didn't want them spread out. I needed them to be able to see each other and engage. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) called the rifle range. (laughs) JONES:It was called the rifle range. WALKER-HARPS:I thought you were going to say they were going to shoot (inaudible). JONES:(laughs) So that got us into a little bit of trouble. Dress code. But, you know, but we worked hard. We worked hard. BAUSKE:What'd you do in the military? JONES:So in the military I was an infantry officer for 20 years and -- BAUSKE:Start and finish? The dates? JONES:So -- okay. So I went to -- graduated from Griffin High in 1973. Started at West Point that summer for what's called Beast Barracks. Graduated four years later in 1977 and became an infantry officer. And just to tell you how much I am a Griffin boy, so Evelyn, who was still my girlfriend at that time, and was still a member of Trinity Church, my dad a pastor, we got married at Trinity, Dad did the marriage. My brother was my best man. Barbara, my sister-in-law was the maid of honor. Or Mycie was, the other sister. But it was in the infantry for 20 years. Was assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia for one tour of duty for three, assigned to Albany State College for three to teach Senior ROTC. Was assigned to Hinesville, Georgia where I did -- was an infantry officer. And then I also did one year at Fort Leavenworth as a just school, Command and General Staff College. And did a total of six years in Germany. Three of those as an infantry officer, our very first assignment, and then three years as a comptroller. Very unique experience for me. I was a new army major, was going to Heidelberg, Germany, I was a comptroller. And I found out that the budget I was responsible for was $1.1 billion. (laughs) And there's my first assignment. The army just threw you in there and said, "Figure it out." Later on I also had my last tour of duty in the Pentagon. So I retired in '97. But I was a comptroller there for the Joint Chiefs of Staff for fighting counter drugs and that budget was like $1.3 billion. So at least then I had some experience. So that was what I did but -- while I was in. CAIN:Can I back you up one more time? JONES:Sure. CAIN:Okay, you said when -- that when mandatory integration hit -- JONES:Okay. CAIN:-- and you had the two football teams come together that there was obviously a quarterback from one team was competing for -- from both teams were competing for one spot. If I take that and ask about integration between the two schools, Fairmont and say Griffin High, okay, or merging almost two districts together, you have that same kind of scenario, I would think, where you would have to decide who was going to be the English teacher at Griffin High, and you've got an English teacher at Fairmont and English teacher at Griffin High. You had that same kind of scenario as you merged those two entities together. Do you know anything about how that was dealt with? And whether there was fairness, the idea of fairness, in trying to do that merger? That had to be a little bit of a challenge. JONES:I don't have a great deal of knowledge about that. But here's what my initial thoughts are. Remember I said that we had one school that was for seventh, one school for eighth, one school for ninth, and then one school for 10, 11, 12? If you had the approximate correct class size you probably needed all the teachers you had, you just had to decide who was going to teach what. And so I don't think it was a -- I don't remember hearing any issues being discussed about somebody not being able to get that particular position. I mean you're -- almost always you were looking for some teachers who would come. And I remember even when I was there we had turnovers of black teachers and white teachers. So it wasn't quite the same in that regard because on the football team you only have 11 starters. Here it could expand based on the number of teachers to accommodate what you, you know, what you need to have. CAIN:Enrollments (inaudible). JONES:Yeah. I think it expanded. Made it easier to accommodate. What was hard was I think when you -- who was going to be the principal, who was going to be the assistant principal, who was going to be the head coach, and that kind of thing. And I do remember thinking that you had a football coach at Fairmont who became an assistant. And the new coach who was in charge had his own system that was different. And I'll tell you though. That quarterback situation was hard. Randy Jones had been a student that I knew at Sacred Heart who was now the quarterback. Eleventh -- he started as a -- I think he started as a sophomore and as a junior. Now he's coming back for senior year. And then you had Greg Wellmaker who started as a sophomore and as a junior at Fairmont who was coming back. And they were different. And the offense the coach wanted to put in. Because he was new too. It was only his second year. Was hard for them to figure out. And so you had to -- they had to figure out how they were going to make it work. I'll tell you though, my senior year, that whole idea though about -- I'm just going to say skill takes over. It was interesting. Our starting quarterback that first year when we got there was a guy named Charles Buckaloo. He broke his leg in the first game. The backup quarterback was David Sprine, who broke his leg in the third game. So now we're down to our third-string quarterback who was a guy named Willie Jordan who was a black kid who was a sophomore. Willie was a better athlete than both those guys. And Willie could throw the ball at least 45 yards on the fly. Came in, started as a sophomore, continued to start as a junior, and finished as a senior. Went on to Tennessee and played football. And so but people were just about winning. And I'll tell you. Football pulled this community together back then better than anything you can imagine. And I take pride in the fact that we were part of that group that started that whole process of just making it work. But it was, you know, kind of like making sausages. Didn't look good when it first started. You had to have the right people there to do it. WALKER-HARPS:Were you a part of the group that decided what the team would be called (inaudible) Bears or whatever and the colors or whatever? Were you a part of that group? JONES:I was not a part of that group, that was -- Danny Wayne was the president. And what they did was they pulled together a group of students from Fairmont and a group of students from Griffin High and those students had to come together, what those ideas were going to be. Now I think suggestions were made to them, but it's -- truthfully it was pretty much an equal compromise. If you remember, it was the Griffin High Eagles and the Fairmont Bears. And so they decided to make it the Griffin High Bears. Fairmont's colors were blue and white. Griffin High's were green and white. And so we ended up becoming the green and gold because Fairmont also had a gold color. And so it was just a compromise. Now some people said, "Why does a black school got to get the mascot? Why can't we be the Fairmont whatever?" But for the players when we got those new uniforms -- and I'll be honest, they gave us a bus. It was painted green and gold. And they started feeding us pregame meals. (laughs) Hey, we were doing fine. And we thought we were going to be pretty good, and we were, we were. All righty. Anything else? Have I talked about what you wanted me to talk about? CAIN:You've covered a whole lot and it's been -- I guess I could ask one more question, and it gets -- this goes back to early years. I know you're going to have to run here. Grandparents' influence. Influence from grandparents, great-grandparents on you, on the family. JONES:Okay. Mom and Dad came from Texas. And Dad was a minister as I said. Initially lived in Pike County. He got his church at Trinity, which is still here, where I currently attend. And so I didn't really know a lot about grandparents. I can remember the first time that Mom would take us back to Texas and spend time with our grandparents on her side of the family. I now know it was because she was working on her master's. And she was going to University of Georgia. And so she had to find something to do with us, because during the summers when Dad was having his church, either vacation Bible school was going on or it was revival. And so had to figure something out. So we would go stay with my mom's mom. And truthfully that's when I learned my cousins and my uncles, and that's when I learned a lot about them. And then later we would go visit my dad's family. And so that was a support. But what I came to realize is that on both sides of the family they had been down as sharecroppers. They moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area which is what we then recognized. And then the idea though was that -- that I came to recognize is my mom went to college. My dad went to college because of the G.I. Bill. Learned to cut hair. He was a barber. And then he had been in the field artillery. My dad's brother was a career army man, a sergeant. And I remember him talking to me about running a basic camp. And I had a picture. It was him and all these trainees and he was the only black person in that picture. And he said, "Curtis, in the army is the only place where I can tell white people what to do." I was teaching Junior ROTC at Griffin High and Sergeant Major Lang, who was one of my instructors, told me about a time when he was working with one of his cadets the year before I got there. Cadet did something and Sergeant Major Lang was in charge of rifle team. And Sergeant Major Lang had told him he couldn't stay on the team. Was kicking him off. He said the boy got up and said, "You know, there'd have been time back there when my uncle just would have hung you up for that." He said, "Like okay, well, your uncle ain't here so it's time for you to go." (laughs) Interesting times. So but Mom went to college, Dad went to college. But I also recognized as I thought back on that Mom at some time drove up to Jonesboro to get to work on her degree after school, and they had to make sacrifices. And so when Mom asked us to go to Sacred Heart and then said, "You need to go to Spalding," it was really them putting their values about the importance of integration with their own children to what it is they believed. When the March on Washington happened Mom and Dad didn't get to go in '63, but when it happened that second time around they went, because they wanted to be a part of that process. And so I think in some ways I recognized that and kept up with it. But it wasn't like they, you know, they talked about it all the time. It's just who we were and what we did. I didn't tell you, but we grew up on Railroad Street down in Barnesville. And it's just a way of keeping humble and knowing where you came from and what you're doing. WALKER-HARPS:What challenge or challenges did you face when you first -- from the community when you first became superintendent? Because the schools are usually the focal point of the community and of particular interest to businesspeople. JONES:Yeah. WALKER-HARPS:And special challenges or just in general (inaudible). JONES:Well, for the most part it was good. Jesse Bradley, who had been superintendent kind of set me up by when it was time for him to have -- he had a seat on the chamber of commerce, in the Rotary. He put me in Kiwanis. We built a -- we started working on this idea of -- it wasn't the College & Career Academy. It was a different idea. Oh, I know, it was UGA was working with the school system to try to approach this poverty issue. And so with Archways. And so Dr. Bradley put me on that. So that put me in good stead to create relationships. I remember he said, "Curtis, I need for you to join Kiwanis. And we'll pay for your membership." It's like oh, okay. And he -- in order to be fair he then went out to the other people in the senior cabinet and offered them the same opportunity. But I eventually became president of the Kiwanis club here in Griffin. And one of the members was about 90 years old, had been a former I think county commissioner -- county manager. And he was getting married and -- at 90. And he invited me to his house for a party that was going on. Turned out his granddaughter had been one of my students when I was the principal at Griffin High School, and I went over. And Evelyn went with me and at this point now I've been named to be the superintendent. And he came up to me while we were at his house with this celebration and he said, "Curtis I'm just going to tell you now. Never had a president that looked like you before but I'm going to support you." And it was like okay. And I told that to Evelyn. And things I think were okay. I was a member of the chamber, and so they were pretty supportive of me. Bonnie Pfrogner was a -- was I would say a supporter. And so if there was resistance I think it was this. If it turned out I'd done something that they didn't approve of, then I'm not sure that leash was too long for me that was out there. And so they may have been willing to pull back. I'm trying to think. Do I really want to tell you this? WALKER-HARPS:Sure. CAIN:(inaudible). JONES:So at one point when I was superintendent it was time for me to name an assistant superintendent and I had a couple people came to me and said, "Curtis, you have support on both sides of town, north and south. But I don't think this town is ready for two blacks to be superintendent and assistant superintendent. So before you make a recommendation you need to think about what your choice is going to be." That was a reminder to me that things had not progressed as much as we -- as -- maybe as much as I'd thought they had. That was different. But I don't remember. Fundraising kept going as strong as it had been. Anna Burns was on my staff. She was very good. Worked very hard. And in fact it increased. She worked very hard to increase the number of partnerships we had. I was able to name a number of people to be principals of schools. And I didn't -- I only got pushback on one, my very first one. But overall I think Griffin -- I think because of the background and even though I didn't live in Griffin, I think most people thought I did. And I think most people just saw me as a Griffin person from -- for, you know, forever. And so I don't think it was a lot. I cannot say I had any issues. Dick Brooks, who was at First National Bank, was very supportive as well. So I think it went pretty well. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). CAIN:(inaudible) Jerry Arkin was supportive too. JONES:Dr. Arkin was very supportive. CAIN:Very supportive. JONES:In fact I didn't know how to use him enough. (laughs) And so were you. To be quite truthful, Art. WALKER-HARPS:Much of that probably, would you agree, came about because of the personality and the people person that Jesse Bradley was and his willingness to take you on and take you in (inaudible). JONES:I would agree with that. I will tell -- here's a story about Dr. Bradley. When I was interviewing to become principal he -- it was just a one-on-one interview. And he said to me, "What kind of principal you want to be? Just a general." And I said, "Dr. Bradley, I just want to be a good principal. I don't want to be a black principal. I want to be a principal who happens to be black that does a good job." And he talked for the next 20 minutes about wanting to be a good superintendent. Not a white superintendent, but a superintendent who happened to be white. We bonded from that moment on. And it was -- I don't know if something was going on with him at that point in time but I will tell you that I do know that some board members ran initially to get rid of Dr. Bradley when he first got there. But all I ever saw him trying to do was what he thought was right. He made hard decisions. Some weren't always popular but he worked hard. WALKER-HARPS:Yeah. I had an issue with him when he first came. But then we became very good friends, very supportive of me and I liked him a lot. And I see him occasionally now. But (inaudible) Curtis. JONES:(laughs) Well, that's because you're not -- people weren't sure what the agenda is that people get hired with or what it is they're trying to accomplish. And if you don't have great communication then people will fill the gaps. But I'll tell you. He was very supportive of me. He even was the very first person through Mike McLemore who asked me if I wanted to become an assistant principal. I went home, told that to Evelyn. She said, "You only been in this for two years, you going to be an assistant principal?" (laughs) Said, "No." And then he encouraged me to go to a conference to learn about how to improve SAT scores. I came back, I briefed them on the plan. We implemented the plan. And I do believe that was another key reason for why they decided to go ahead and let me apply to be principal of the high school. And then I mean truthfully, if I -- as I look back on it, it was that, then assistant superintendent, and then putting me in places so I could develop relationships. So Dr. Bradley I think just wanted to do the best. And truthfully he will tell you he only came here for four years -- for three years. They hired him to come in to clean things up. And then he just stayed. He was good. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) you came to the system with little education background (inaudible). JONES:Correct, I'd been in the army for 20 years, and -- but what I think was happening -- well, you got to understand now. Dr. Bradley came from the prison system. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:(laughs) And so the idea is that you're looking for leaders. WALKER-HARPS:Clean things up is (inaudible) about. Yeah (inaudible) system. BAUSKE:(inaudible) army. JONES:Well, and I did have somebody come back and tell me when my time was up to leave Griffin, they said, "Okay, we've had Bradley and now we've had you. Now we need a real educator." I said, "Okay." I thought we did pretty good. We made some improvements while I was here, and I'm very proud of the time and the people that worked with me. But -- and I'll be honest. James Westbury, who was the board president when I left, said, "Curtis, we trained you well. Now you're leaving us." And I had to apologize for that. But I'll be quite honest, they did train me well, gave me a lot of opportunities. And I feel very fortunate. I feel very fortunate to have been in Griffin too. And I say that. Very proud of what's happened the 18 years that I was here. For me it's the American dream to be quite truthful, 20 years in the army, and now 20 years in education. WALKER-HARPS:Well, we're proud of you. America is. I am. I'm not always agreeing, but we manage to coexist. So but we are proud and thankful. Your contribution that you made to this community. JONES:Well, appreciate it. WALKER-HARPS:Wish you well. And there's no point in wishing you well in Macon because you're already doing so well that we -- JONES:Well -- WALKER-HARPS:-- just need to commend you on how well you have been received and the progress that you've been able to make. JONES:We appreciate it. But again I'm really proud of the work that we did here in Griffin. And the people who were principals, assistant principals. And, you know, and I'll be remiss if I didn't say something about my wife who was a -- truthfully an inspiration. I used to go home and say, "Evelyn, what is this stuff? Evelyn, what is this?" She was a teacher at Anne Street for a little while. Then she moved to Jordan Hill only for a couple weeks. Went on over to Orrs. Then became a gifted one teacher here in the system. And then an assistant principal at Anne Street again. Became the principal at Anne Street. And now she's at Orrs. But she's the true educator. Evelyn has worked in Department of Defense schools, Fairfax County, she just solves so much. And has been able to contribute so much. And truthfully if I ever was successful in any ways while I was here, a large part of that would be because when I was about to do something Evelyn would say, "What are you doing?" (laughs) And I would explain some of it and she'd say, "Well, all right, now, you know what you're doing." And just gave me reason to think. So I have to thank her as well. WALKER-HARPS:Evelyn was always destined to be an educator. When she -- eighth grade, and my student, you could see the potential of that girl. JONES:Well, I truly admit that she's not as smart as I am. Well, she's not. I married her. (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:Oh, okay, I think that's (inaudible) that is a wrap-up. So again we say thank you for taking time and the interest to come and share with us on this project. JONES:Thank you. WALKER-HARPS:Appreciate it. JONES:I appreciate it. CAIN:(inaudible). JONES:Thank you, sir. I didn't recognize you, sir. END OF AUDIO FILE
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Griffin, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
66 minutes
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-016/ohms
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Curtis Jones, June 27, 2017
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA-016
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Curtis Jones
Art Cain
Jewel Walker-Harps
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Subject
The topic of the resource
Discrimination
School integration
Military education
United States--Veterans
African American veterans
United States. Army--Officers
Education
Description
An account of the resource
Curtis Jones grew up in Griffin, Georgia during segregation. As a child, he was one of the first students to integrate into Sacred Heart Elementary and later was one of the first to integrate into Griffin High School. Jones attended West Point Military Academy before he served in the army as an infantry officer, a position he held for 20 years. After retiring from the army, Jones became the first African American superintendent of the Griffin School system. In this interview, Jones talks about his school experience, military and educational career, and he discusses integration and discrimination.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Music Project Oral History Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Music Project Oral History Collection is part of the Athens Music Project (AMP), a Willson Center for Humanities and Arts research cluster co-directed by Jean Kidula and Susan Thomas. Interviews in this collection document the development of Athens as a breeding ground for multiple musical communities--the most prominent of them being the Southern independent rock scene. Other areas to be documented include a variety of African-American musical traditions, hip-hop, jazz, bluegrass, folk music traditions, Latin music, new music and conceptual sound art, classical music, and musical theater, and AthFest.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=2&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Subject
The topic of the resource
Music
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Music
Georgia--Communities
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL379AMP
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
URL
<h3></h3>
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
117 minutes
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL379AMP-052/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
2017-05-03
Interview with David Hannon Pierce, May 3, 2017
RBRL379AMP-052
117 minutes
RBRL379AMP
Athens Music Project Oral History Collection
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
David Hannon Pierce
Grace Elizabeth Hale
0
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_ti28gro4&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_b5256oek" width="400" height="285" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe>
20
Coming to Athens
I like to start by asking people...
Pierce talks about coming to Athens in 1976 to attend UGA after serving in the Air Force. As a student, Pierce states that he attended night school before he chose art as his major.
Air Force;Environmental Protection Agency (EPA);University of Georgia (UGA)
425
Meeting Michael Stipe / Bands around Athens
So, we began to...
Pierce talks about meeting Michael Stipe in one of his lecture halls and describes the bands and music culture of Athens at the time. Pierce recalls what he thought of the band Gangster, one of Michael Stipe's earliest bands. Pierce talks about drumming in a band during high school.
funk bands;Gangster (band);Michael Stipe;Pylon
852
Playing music
And my friend Bob Fernandez...
Pierce continues describing the origins of his drumming style, as he calls it a mixture of disco and marching band. Pierce talks about the clubs and bands that he saw later in his school career. Pierce talks about joining the band Oh-Ok as an Air Force veteran.
house parties;Linda Hopper;marching band;Oh-Ok;Pylon
1232
The Style of Oh-Ok
And so, I fit in that...
Pierce talks about playing in the band Oh-Ok, and talks about losing his girlfriend, Cathy. Pierce describes the uniqueness of the artists in Athens. Pierce talks about the writing style of Linda Hopper, and the musical culture of the the band Oh-Ok.
Linda Hopper;Micheal Stipe;Oh-Ok
1666
First gigs / Michael Stipe's writing
And we didn't sound like a ...
Pierce explains the uniqueness of his drumming style in the band Oh-Ok. Pierce talks about one of their earliest gigs in 1982. Pierce describes the writing style of Michael Stipe as both whimsical and poetic.
drumming;Linda Hopper;Oh-Ok
2124
First gig / Touring the east coast.
I saw this result...
Pierce describes the instinctual nature of art and talks about Oh-Ok's first performance. Pierce recalls that the band was liked by the audience and went on to play house parties and tour around the east coast.
art;Oh-Ok;punk rock;touring
2647
Touring cont. / First single release
But, you know I was kind of embarrassed...
Pierce shares stories from touring the east coast with Oh-Ok in the early 1980's. Pierce talks about the recording release of Oh-Ok's first single in Atlanta.
drag;New York;record;single
3066
Education / Matthew Sweet
It wasn't just about...
Pierce talks about the meaning behind the design of Oh-Ok's first record's cover art. Pierce explains that he changed his major throughout his schooling at the University of Georgia. Pierce describes the changing members of Oh-Ok, recalling the addition of guitarist Matthew Sweet.
art;cover;Matthew Sweet;University of Georgia (UGA)
3562
Songwriting
All these bands at times...
Pierce talks about the work that some bands did to maintain their identity in their record releases. Pierce describes guitarist Matthew Sweet's playing and songwriting.
Matthew Sweet;New York;R.E.M
4008
Leaving Oh-Ok
Matthew later released all our songs ...
Pierce talks about the release of later Oh-Ok records. Pierce shares his reason for leaving Oh-Ok.
B-52's;Matthew Sweet;Oh-Ok
4451
Relationships within the band
I knew one guy...
Pierce talks about his relationship with Linda Stipe, which ended when Pierce left Oh-Ok. Pierce describes his perception of band review articles, and his decision to start a magazine in which members of the Athens music community would publish reviews of bands.
Georgia Student Quarterly Magazine;Grateful Dead;Linda Stipe;Oh-Ok
4889
Magazines published at UGA
And so, that time the Student Union...
Pierce talks about the development of some of the student magazines he started, and the topics the magazines covered. Pierce talks about the attempted creation of a futuristic community that never came to fruition in the 1980's.
Athens Georgia Student Quarterly;Peabody Award;Student Interest Magazine;Tate Center
5293
Starting a magazine
We did everything old school...
Pierce talks about the process that went into publishing the magazine <i>Hot Java</i> which covered events in Athens. Pierce talks about how he started a music magazine for local Athenian bands.
Athens, GA Student Quarterly Magazine;Hot Java;Pylon
5648
Tasty World Magazine
So I went to Chuck Searcy...
Pierce continues describing the methods of starting the <i>Tasty World Magazine</i>, which ran during the 1980's.
floppy disk;publishing;Tasty World Magazine
6094
The end of Tasty World Magazine
Eventually, a guy came along...
Pierce explains that the <i>Tasty World Magazine</i> was eventually bought and the publishing company was later dismantled. Pierce talks about the decision to name the magazine, and the process through which the magazine was sold.
Spin Magazine;Tasty World Magazine;The Observer
6519
The legacy of the Tasty World Magazine
You it was overlooked at the time...
Pierce talks about the importance of the <i>Tasty World Magazine</i> in the building of community identity. Pierce describes the expectations that he had for the magazine when he first came up with the idea of an Athens music magazine, and the ways in which it influenced different sectors of music in Athens.
dancing;music;Tasty World Magazine
Oral history
No transcript.
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL379AMP/findingaid
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with David Hannon Pierce, May 3, 2017
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Hannon Pierce
Grace Elizabeth Hale
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL379AMP-052
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Veterans
Drummers (Musicians)
Journalism
Description
An account of the resource
David Hannon Pierce arrived in Athens, Georgia in 1976 after he left the Air Force. Five years into his stay in Athens, Pierce joined the band Oh-OK as the drummer. He later left the band in 1982 to perform with fellow musician Matthew Sweet. Later, Pierce created the Tasty World Magazine, a magazine that captured the music scene of Athens during the 1980s. In this interview, Pierce talks about his first impressions of Athens, performing in the band Oh-OK, and the creation and legacy of the Tasty World Magazine.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
69 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0064/audio-access" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0064/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ROOT xmlns="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms/ohms.xsd"><record id="00106783" dt="2021-11-10"><version>5.4</version><date value="" format="yyyy-mm-dd"/><date_nonpreferred_format>2015-03-06</date_nonpreferred_format><cms_record_id></cms_record_id><title>Interview with Duard Baxter, March 6, 2015</title><accession>RBRL324FPP-0064</accession><duration>69 minutes</duration><collection_id>RBRL324FPP</collection_id><collection_name>First Person Project</collection_name><series_id></series_id><series_name></series_name><repository>Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia</repository><funding></funding><repository_url /><interviewee>Duard Baxter</interviewee><interviewer>Tina Dimnwaobi</interviewer><file_name></file_name><sync></sync><sync_alt></sync_alt><transcript_alt_lang></transcript_alt_lang><translate>0</translate><media_id></media_id><media_url></media_url><mediafile><host>Kaltura</host><avalon_target_domain></avalon_target_domain><host_account_id></host_account_id><host_player_id></host_player_id><host_clip_id></host_clip_id><clip_format>audio</clip_format></mediafile><kembed><iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_1ma3u38g&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&amp;flashvars[localizationCode]=en&amp;flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&amp;flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&amp;flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&amp;flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&amp;flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&amp;&wid=1_dqi9lht2" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe></kembed><language></language><user_notes></user_notes><index><point><time>28</time><title>Upbringing / Entering WWII </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Where were you born and when? </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter describes his childhood in Madison County, Georgia. Baxter recalls his time in high school and shares that he volunteered for WWII after the death of his older brother on the battlefront. He then talks about his experience as a Marine in the Pacific Theater.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Marine Corp.;Okinawa;Pacific Theater;Paris Island;World war II</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>306</time><title>Daily life in Marines</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>We boarded a ship... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter describes boarding a ship off the coast of Parris Island during WWII where he, along with the other Marines in his division, were sent to Okinawa (the pacific theater of WWII). He shares that he was a part of the 6th Marine Division, where he served until the end of the war. Baxter talks about the daily life in the barracks and his experience in basic training. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>6th Marine Division;M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle;machine guns;Marines;Okinawa;Parris Island</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>594</time><title>War in Okinawa</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>What can you remember the most from... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter talks about his deployment to Okinawa during WWII. He recalls the guerilla warfare and other tactics employed by the Japanese in Okinawa. Baxter describes an incident regarding Japanese women and girls after Japanese soldiers occupied schools and villages.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Okinawa, Japan;suicide;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>876</time><title>War in Okinawa (cont.) </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>They say you got eighteen of them... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter describes some of the keepsakes he took from dead Japanese soldiers as memorandums from WWII. He shares that many Marines took items from the dead soldiers as reminders of their time overseas. Baxter recalls an instance in a foxhole with seven other marines where an explosion caused their foxhole to cave in. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>foxhole;M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle;samurai sword;souvenirs</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1186</time><title>Wartime experiences</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Tell them about you seeing your friend... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter talks about the death of a fellow Marine while in Okinawa, and shares that some infantryman had saved his life. He then shares how he refused a medal of honor as well as the opportunity for permanent, post-war employment. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>death;M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle;Marine Corp.</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1507</time><title>Invading Naha, Okinawa </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>So building up on that... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter describes the speedy transition from basic training to combat and the invasion of Naha City in Okinawa. He talks about an ambush that occurred at the walls of Naha after he and his fellow Marines fell asleep, in which someone in his unit died. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Naha, Okinawa;Okinawa;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1856</time><title>Getting injured on the battlefield </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>I said, how long I been here...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter describes his confusion after being injured after the invasion of Naha, Okinawa. He shares the sense commitment he had to his company. Baxter recalls the sense of pity he had for captured citizens in Okinawa. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>injury;Japanese citizens;Naha Okinawa;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2128</time><title>The dropping of the atomic bombs</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>You went back to Guam....</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter talks about the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which occurred while he was on rest in Guam. He explains the history behind the captured people of Okinawa and his division's entry into Japan as one of the first troops to enter Japan. Baxter shares his recollections of Pearl Harbor and his feeling that the atomic bomb was appropriate for stopping WWII. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>4th Marine Division;atomic bomb;Guam;Okinawa, Japan;Pearl Harbor</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2366</time><title>Going home</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Now, we'll move on to when...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter talks about his visit home during the war after the death of his brother just ten days into his deployment. Baxter shares memories of his brother and he talks about coming back from war. He recalls enrolling at the University of Georgia afterwards, though he only attended for one year. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>education;Forestry;University of Georgia;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2654</time><title>Transition to civilian life</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>When you finished Forestry School... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter talks about leaving Georgia to go to Washington D.C after dropping out of college. He then explains that the war did not effect his family dynamics upon returning and recalls that there were no parades upon his return. Baxter shares his opinion that his faith, attention to detail, and devotion to the soldiers in his division is what kept him safe.
</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>forestry;University of Georgia;USDS (US Department of Agriculture)</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2942</time><title>Reflections of the war</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>How do you feel, having done your duty... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter describes the hate he had for the enemy while in battle in WWII and recalls his reluctance to share his hopes for the future while in Japan, as he wasn't sure if he would survive through the end of the war. He shares that he didn't maintain contact with his fellow soldiers after the war ended.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>4th Marine Division;death;M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle;Sullivan Boys;war</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>3327</time><title>Current circumstances / Reflections on international relations</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>So even after the war, your... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter describes how the end of WWII bought an end to many of the relationships he had while on the battlefield. He stresses that he just wanted an education at the end of the war. Baxter reflects on his current condition, and shares his opinions on the current leaders of Russia and the presidency. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Cold War;education;home;Russia;Washington, DC;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>3614</time><title>Opinion on current affairs</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>They have peaches and cream... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Baxter shares his opinions of those in Congress. He then explains his wish for less war, and his feeling that Russia poses a threat to the United States. Baxter's wife, Dorothy Baxter describes her understanding of WWII since the start of the War. She describes her family and what they did during the war. Baxter then describes his role as a rifleman during the fight. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>congress;Japan;Russia;Vietnam War</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point></index><type>oral history</type><description></description><rel /><transcript>No transcript.</transcript><transcript_alt></transcript_alt><rights>Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.</rights><fmt>audio</fmt><usage></usage><userestrict>0</userestrict><xmllocation></xmllocation><xmlfilename></xmlfilename><collection_link>http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP/findingaid</collection_link><series_link></series_link></record></ROOT>
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
I. Georgia Narratives
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0064
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Duard Baxter, March 6, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
United States--Veterans
United States. Marine Corps--Marines
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-06
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Duard Baxter
Tina Dimnwaobi
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Description
An account of the resource
Duard Baxter was born in Madison County, Georgia in 1924. After graduating high school, Baxter volunteered for the Marine Corps, serving in the Pacific Theater during WWII under the 6th Marine Division. Upon his return to the United States, Baxter went to dental school in Georgetown, Washington after which he practiced dentistry in Winder, Georgia for a total of 25 years. In this interview, Baxter talks about his experience as a Marine in WWII, his reflections on war and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, his transition to civilian life, and his opinion on the current state of world affairs. <br /><br/><br/>This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">Georgia Narratives</a> series.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Oral History Project was initiated in 2014 to document modern Athens history, roughly from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Interviews cover topics such as neighborhoods and communities in Athens, civil rights demonstrations, African American history, as well as personal histories of narrators.<br /><br /><span><strong>Content Warning</strong>: Some interviews in this collection contain harmful or distressing content, to include racism, racial violence, and racial slurs.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=1&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
74 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-112/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-112/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
2023-06-15
Interview with Earnest Thompson, June 15, 2023
RBRL361AOHP-112
RBRL361AOHP
Athens Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
russelluga
Earnest Thompson
William Breeding
0
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" type="text/javascript" src='https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_mn95embk&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_3tugz40b" width="640" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Earnest Thompson, Athens Oral History Project"></iframe>
0
Earliest Memories / Charleston, SC
...but I would like for you to tell me what they told you about the day you were born.
Thompson describes his and his twin sister's birth as it was told to him, and explains that he was raised by his great-aunt. He reflects on some of his earliest memories in Charleston, South Carolina, explaining that his community was multiracial prior to official integration.
Athens, Georgia; Great Depression; Midwife; Charleston, South Carolina; 1940's; Segregation; Integration; Renting; Home Ownership; Playground
0
438
Childhood Games
What type of games did y'all play?
Thompson talks about the games he played growing up and provides descriptions of some of the ones that today's generation may not be familiar with. He then talks about how the "Cowboys and Indian" stereotype began as a result of movies such as The Lone Ranger.
Games; Children; Childhood Games; Video Games; Generational Differences; Roller Skates; Dodgeball; Cops and Robbers; Cap Pistol; Cowboys and Indians; Imagination; Soapbox Car; Charleston, South Carolina; The Lone Ranger
0
1145
Elementary and High School / Importance of History
Okay, now tell me about your early schooling.
Thompson discusses what school was like during his youth, explaining that all schools were entirely segregated and detailing the rough condition of many of the educational facilities. He emphasizes the importance of an intentional and complete teaching of history, connecting the things he learned in his history courses in high school to the events of the modern day.
Charleston, South Carolina; School; Elementary Education; Henry P. Archer School; Elementary School; Segregation; University of Georgia; Burke High School; Science; Space; History; War; Colonization; Slavery; Indigenous Americans; Black History; Slavery; Stories
0
1739
School Newspaper and Post-High School / Time in the Navy
But, uh, I was on the school newspaper and I was fascinated by that...
After discussing his avid participation in the school newspaper, Thompson provides a brief timeline of the events that occurred after graduating from Burke High School, including moving to New York, joining the Navy, and attending Howard University. He goes on to reflect on some of his experiences during his five years in the Navy, emphasizing how the racial barrier lessened as the sense of camaraderie grew among the groups he was a part of.
Burke High School; Charleston, South Carolina; Lincoln University of Missouri; Journalism; School Newspaper; Scholarship; School Trips; Tuition; New York; Navy; Howard University; G.I. Bill; Physics; Camaraderie; Racism; Sailors; Race
0
2141
Physics at Howard University / Computer Science
Well after I got out of the Navy I went to Howard University...
Following his time in the Navy, Thompson went on to study and receive a degree in physics from Howard University. He explains his relationship with physics and why he pursued a career in computer science and software engineering as the age of computers ramped up. He also emphasizes the importance of doing what you love.
Howard University; Washington, D.C.; Physics; Writing; History; Science; Atom Bomb; Navy; Research; Laboratory; National Bureau of Standards; Computer Age; Computer Science; Technology; Software Engineering; Computers
0
2579
Teaching Computers / Raising with Love
When I came back South I wound up just working in the schools a little bit, kind of started helping the kids with computers...
Thompson talks about his experience working as a computer paraprofessional at Hilsman Middle School in Athens, Georgia. He then explains his reasoning behind raising children with love and entirely without corporal punishment, and why he believes in this approach so strongly.
Retirement; Education; Schools; Computers; Computer Science; Teacher; Paraprofessional; Athens Area Black History Bowl; Athens, Georgia; Hilsman Middle School; Children; Parenting; Love; Christianity; Corporal Punishment; Bible; Facebook; Archibald Killian
0
3118
Teaching Wealth Accumulation
We do not, most of us, do not teach our children to accumulate wealth.
Thompson explains his advocacy for teaching children in Black communities the importance and methods of wealth accumulation. He emphasizes the importance on not living on credit and building savings, and that wealth is possible if it is worked towards from early on in life.
Wealth; Wealth Accumulation; Education; Child Raising; Slavery; Racism; Prejudice; Segregration; Discrimination; Credit; Savings; Risk; Entertainment; Success; Artists; Horace King; Willie Green; Professional Football
0
3430
Security in Faith
The area in which I have developed the most since being in Athens has been a spiritual one.
Thompson talks about how his view of God and his faith have changed and become stronger since his return to Athens. He tells a touching story from his childhood of the time he felt the presence of God and how his views differ from the views of other Christians.
Athens, Georgia; Spirituality; Christianity; Baptist Church; Faith; Love; Satan; WXAG Radio; Christian Values
0
4029
On Misteachings in Christianity / Advice to Youth
...and I brought up the idea, the "misteachings" of the Bible.
Thompson and Breeding discuss misteachings of the Bible and its role in slavery. Thompson then offers his advice and wisdom, emphasizing the need to love as much as possible.
WXAG Radio; "Keep It Real" Radio Show; Hattie Lawson; Misteaching; Faith; Bible School; Slavery; Religion; Bible; Christianity; History; Culture; Youth; Love; God; Success
0
oral history
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
https://wisvetsmuseum.com/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=/render.php?cachefile=RBRL361AOHP-112.xml
RBRL361AOHP-112.xml
http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP/findingaid
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Earnest Thompson, June 15, 2023
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
African American veterans
United States--Veterans
United States. Navy--Sailors
Religion
Education
African American teachers
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Earnest Thompson
William Breeding
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-6-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
rbrl361aohp-112
Description
An account of the resource
Earnest Thompson was born in 1935 in Charleston, South Carolina. He was raised through the Great Depression and gives a look into what childhood was like in that era. In this interview, Thompson details his life, his career, and his views, providing insight as to what grade school was like in the 40s and 50s, and recalls his college years studying physics at Howard University. He reflects on his career in computer science, his role as an educator after retirement, and completes the interview sharing details about his views on God and Christianity. Throughout the interview he emphasizes the importance of a proper understanding of history and how essential love is for a successful life.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Hyperlink
A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
54 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0061/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
I. Georgia Narratives
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0061
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Edsel Benson, March 3, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
United States--Veterans
Cold War
United States. Army. Air Corps
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-03
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H. Edsel Benson
Alexandra Krier
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Description
An account of the resource
Edel Benson was born in 1921 in Athens, Georgia. Benson attended Athens High School and the University of Georgia. He served as a Second Lieutenant over the 48th fighters squadron in WWII. In this interview, Benson talks about his time in Europe and Africa during WWII, his most memorable moments from the war, the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his thoughts on the Cold War and current international relations. <br /><br/><br/>This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">Georgia Narratives</a> series.
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History
Georgia--Politics and government
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
The Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection consists of interviews with politically prominent Georgians conducted by Bob Short from 2006 to 2016. Interviewees include former governors, members of both the U.S. and Georgia Congresses, secretaries of state, lobbyists, journalists, lawyers, activists, and relatives of prominent politicians. Included with these oral histories are a few public programs recorded at Young Harris College in 2006-2007. Most interviews were recorded in the homes and offices of interviewees or in the Bob Short Oral History Studio at the University of Georgia. The conversations cover many topics at the intersection of politics and public life in modern Georgia, with a particular strength in gubernatorial contests, the Civil Rights movement, reapportionment, the development of Atlanta, the rise of the Republican party in Georgia, political journalism, and the interaction between religion and politics.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=9&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here. </a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006-2016
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL220ROGP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-075/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Fletcher Thompson, April 6, 2009 RBRL220ROGP-075 RBRL220ROGP Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection ROGP 075 Interview with Fletcher Thompson finding aid Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Fletcher Thompson Bob Short 1:|14(3)|22(10)|32(1)|44(3)|56(1)|67(9)|79(12)|89(2)|101(10)|116(5)|128(10)|141(13)|152(1)|163(2)|175(10)|185(15)|198(5)|209(5)|219(12)|231(9)|242(3)|253(12)|264(10)|276(1)|290(2)|300(5)|311(2)|321(8)|332(6)|344(14)|357(7)|372(10)|384(15)|399(4)|413(6)|422(7)|433(3)|447(2)|463(11)|475(12)|486(2)|496(9)|509(10)|523(2)|534(9)|546(8)|557(5)|568(3)|584(7)|595(8)|607(17)|620(8)|633(1)|645(9)|659(15)|673(5)|686(9)|697(4)|711(3)|721(10)|730(14)|740(7)|752(4)|764(3)|775(10)|793(5)|805(12)|817(16)|827(12)|838(9)|851(6)|862(12)|876(2)|892(12)|904(6)|915(14)|933(1)|945(10)|956(9)|966(13)|978(4)|988(12)|998(8)|1012(13)|1029(7)|1039(11)|1052(10)|1063(8)|1077(4)|1089(10)|1103(4)|1117(2)|1128(5)|1139(9)|1152(5)|1166(11)|1180(12)|1193(11)|1208(12)|1219(14)|1233(13)|1245(7)|1258(8)|1268(2)|1280(1)|1290(10)|1309(4) 1 http://youtu.be/uzQJxzTARsg YouTube video English 31 Early life Before we get into your very successful political career... Thompson recalls growing up in East Point, Georgia in the suburbs of Atlanta, hearing stories about the Civil War from his grandfather and the history of Georgia's vote for succession from the Union. Thompson also talks about being a Republican while his father was a Democrat, and about running as a Republican candidate for a State Senate seat. Civil War ; College, Park, Georgia ; Democrat ; East Point, Georgia ; Republican ; scallywags 17 654 Military career Before we get further into politics, let me ask you a question about your military service. Thompson recounts being inspired by President Roosevelt's Day of Infamy speech, and enrolling in the army in hopes of being an aviation cadet but being placed in infantry training instead. He talks about training as a navigator and serving as a rescue responder in the 6th Emergency Air Sea Rescue Squadron in the Pacific Theater. He also recounts his " ; closest call" ; war moment in which he accidentally almost died. Air Res Rescue ; atomic bomb ; infantry ; navigation ; Pacific Theater ; Pearl Habor ; Studs Meyer 17 1487 Atomic bombs / Pacific Theater surrender Then when the atomic bombs were dropped... Thompson recalls a dispatch mission to look for survivors of the bombed USS < ; i> ; Indianapolis< ; /i> ; . He talks about the Japanese surrender after the atomic bomb drop, and serving as part of the occupation troops. Thompson talks about attending Emory University for a quarter after returning from World War II. He recalls meeting his future wife and going out on their first date. atomic bomb ; baka bomb ; Emory University ; homecoming ; Japanese surrender ; Kamikaze pilots ; marriage ; USS Indianapolis ; wife 17 1994 Atomic, hydrogen bomb testing I stayed in the Reserves and I would fly on the weekends... Thompson talks about being called back into service, flying B-47 jet bombers, and flying atmospheric-sampling planes after hydrogen bomb and atomic bomb tests. atomic bomb ; B-47 ; hydrogen bomb ; Mike Shot ; Operation Ivy ; U.S. Reserves 17 2339 Aviation law Let's get around to you becoming a lawyer. Thompson talks about working for Associated Aviation Underwriters after retiring from military service, studying at Woodrow Wilson College of Law, and practicing aviation law. Atlanta Law School ; aviation law ; insurance ; Woodrow Wilson College of Law 17 2512 Georgia State Senate That's when I got involved in politics. Thompson recalls running for a state senate seat as a Republican at a time when there was a Republican minority in Georgia politics. He discusses his unsuccessful attempts to pass legislation for open investigation into local government corruption and for creating a uniform metro Atlanta emergency telephone number. Thompson also describes his participation on the original drafting committee for the MARTA Authority Act. corruption ; emergency response ; MARTA Authority Act ; public transportation ; Republican minority 17 2952 Run for U.S. House of Representatives Then, I got into the Congressional thing. Thompson discusses the pressure from the Republican Party to campaign against incumbent U.S. Representative Charles Weltner for his seat in the House. He recalls hiring a recent graduate, Hal Phillips, as his campaign manager, the incident of a discovering a spy for the opposing candidate, and Weltner's dropout from the race in protest of running on the same ticket as Lester Maddox. black vote ; campaign ; Charles Weltner ; Congress ; election ; Hal Phillips ; Lester Maddox ; racial politics ; Republican Party 17 3549 Experience in U.S House: Vietnam War, desegregation Well then, of course, I was able to be sworn in... Thompson discusses being a co-sponsor of the 911 uniform emergency number legislation and being president of the freshman Republicans in the House. He also recounts the time a group of anti-Vietnam War protesters from Atlanta occupied his office. Thompson also recalls controversy surrounding his opposition to Jane Fonda's broadcast to troops in Vietnam and to school busing to achieve racial balance. Thompson also discusses his re-election campaigns against challengers Charles Weltner and Andy Young, and public protest against his campaign's publication of a Andy Young quote regarding the Black Panther Party. 911 implementation ; Andrew Young ; anti-war protest ; AT& ; T ; Black Panther Party ; desegregation ; Jane Fonda ; Republican Party ; school busing ; Vietnam War 17 4575 Run for U.S. Senate And yet, you decided to run for the United States Senate. Thompson reflects on the 1972 U.S. Senate race against Republican Bo Callaway and Democrat Sam Nunn. He reflects on mistakes he made during his campaign regarding fundraising campaign contributions, use of negative campaign ads, and TV advertisement expenditure. Thompson also recalls how presidential-candidate Richard Nixon retracted his promise to endorse Thompson's campaign. advertising ; Bo Callaway ; campaign contribution ; fundraising ; Richard Nixon ; Sam Nunn 17 5196 Republican Party in Georgia Let's talk for a minute about the Republican Party in Georgia and its growth. Thompson talks about his limited involvement in the Republican Party in Georgia after his retirement from politics. He gives his view on the trend of privatization of public services, such as the distribution of private bids from the Atlanta Gas Light company. Atlanta Gas Light ; privatization ; Public Service Commission ; public utilities 17 5506 Life after politics What has life been like for Fletcher Thompson after politics? Thompson talks about his career after politics, and his civil and public engagement. He recounts one incident in which he represented the drug company G.D. Searle in its attempt to obtain an ocean-dumping permit for it NuraSweet byproduct. He also recounts a memorable experience of taking two of the company's VPs out on a plane ride. aspartame ; G.D. Searle ; NutraSweet 17 6013 World War II Memorial Inscription Controversy But then another thing that has happened. Thompson discusses the efforts of the Atlanta World War II Roundtable to petition for Congress to include the phrase " ; so help me God" ; on the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C., on the claim that it was left out from President Roosevelt's original speech. Franklin D. Roosevelt ; secularism ; World War II Memorial 17 oral history BOB SHORT: I’m Bob Short, and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics, sponsored by Young Harris College, the Richard B. Russell Library and the University of Georgia. Our guest today is former State Senator and United States Congressman Fletcher Thompson. Fletcher, we are delighted to have you on our program. FLETCHER THOMPSON: Thank you, Bob. It’s great to be on. SHORT: Before we get into your very successful political career, let’s talk for a minute about your early life growing up in College Park, Georgia. THOMPSON: Well, Bob, I was born in College Park, Georgia, in 1925 on February the 5th. And that was during the Depression years. I can remember Mother and Dad struggling at that time. And my grandfather lived in East Point, and he was in the real estate business. And he had very disastrous effect on some houses he owned. He had too many mortgages, couldn’t pay them off. So we moved up to East Point to consolidate the houses. Mother and Dad kept the house down at College Park. But my grandfather was a Republican, and he had been mayor of the city of East Point for – golly, I don’t know how many terms, but about 10 or 11, 12 years, in the late 1880s and 1890s. But most of my memories relate to being in East Point. My grandfather was born in 1857. He was seven years old when Sherman came through North Georgia, and he had a number of stories to tell me about that. He lived to be 99 years old. Some of the more interesting ones were the fact that his father, James Dalrymple Thompson, was a doctor, and he’d been born over in Jackson County near Jefferson, Georgia. And then they lived up in North Georgia for a while, then they settled between Rome and Cave Springs. But he apparently was one who was opposed to secession, and he kind of headed up a movement like that around Floyd County. And most people don’t realize that Floyd County voted not to secede from the Union. In fact, most of North Georgia did. And there was a very, very close vote as to whether Georgia would secede from the Union in 1860 – I guess it was 60. The vote was held in Milledgeville and it barely carried. But my great-grandfather, James Dalrymple Thompson, held that position. And he and others were frowned upon by some of the local people, but they had a lot of supporters, too. And as a doctor, he went ahead and joined the Confederacy, and he was in his Confederate hospital around Cedartown when Sherman came through. My grandfather tells me this story, he was seven years old at the time. The main body of Sherman troops were coming from Chattanooga down to Atlanta, but they were a little bit to the west of that. But there were scouting troops that came out, and they got word that some were headed that way. And he said he remembers his mother getting behind a mule and plowing the ground out there and taking the valuables in the house and burying them in that new-ploughed area because they were afraid that they would be looted. He also tell this story, that they saw some Union soldiers coming up there, and he ran, he jumped in a haystack. And apparently some of them saw him at that time and he didn’t know it. But he says they came up to that haystack and they said, “Shall we burn this haystack, or should we shoot our rifles through it? What will we do?” He said about that time one of them grabbed him by the foot and pulled him out. He said, “It scared me so much I wet my pants.” (laughter) But that was the story there. And he also tells me this, that his mother was a Baskin from Carroll County, and they were very much in favor – the Baskins were very much in favor of secession. But when he married – I think it was Elizabeth Ann Baskin. I’m not certain of her name. I would have to look it up. But when he married her, her father gave her a couple of slaves, and he refused to have those slaves. He says, “You’re going to have to turn them loose or give them back.” But that was the way that he was. And then after the war, there were people that – Grandpa referred to them as “scallywags.” These were not carpetbaggers ; these were scallywags. And they were very much upset about some of the people that had been opposed to secession, and they were trying to find my great-grandfather, James Dalrymple Thompson. They decided they’d better move, so they moved to Atlanta. And he has quite a story about how long it took them. It was a rainy, wet day and night getting into Atlanta. But they first stopped in Peter Street and stayed there for a short while. Then they went down to what is now East Point. And my great-grandfather gave the land for the East Point Avenue Methodist Church. He called it the Nellie Chapel Church. That was my grandfather’s sister that had died. And he refused to associate it with the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church – the Methodist Episcopal Church South, I guess, was the proper name. Instead he associated it with the Northern branch. And it was a small church, but it really the first church in East Point. The First Methodist Church really was on the Connally Plantation just outside of East Point, then brought in. But it had the name First Methodist. But the East Point Avenue Methodist Church is directly across from the City Hall. And if you look, there’s a graveyard there. There’s still some Thompson graves in there. And it was not until 1938 that there was a merger between the Methodist churches and formed the United Methodist Church that it then became part of the other. But Grandpa taught Sunday school there for about 50 years. And he was very much a Republican. My dad became a Democrat, much to the chagrin of my grandfather. But I remember as a small boy sitting in the living room, and we were on Church Street in East Point, on Sunday afternoons. Both of them smoked cigars, and I used to love the smell of that cigar. There were just layers of smoke in there. But they would argue politics. And Grandpa was a strong Republican. And Dad had become a Eugene Talmadge supporter, and he later was elected, I guess, Tax Commissioner of the City of Atlanta and Fulton County. He was Attorney for the Tax Assessors before that. But I think when I first became involved in politics was when Eisenhower and Taft were running. And being a World War II veteran, I was very much for Eisenhower. And I remember handing out some Eisenhower materials and so forth. My dad, although he was a Democrat, he was for Bob Taft. And he didn’t like the fact that I was for Eisenhower, but that was just one of those things. But anyway, later on, when I was a member of the East Point Rotary Club, some friends tried to get me to run for Congress. Not Congress, for the State Senate. Charlie Brown was our then senior state senator. And most people don’t realize, but in Georgia, the state senators, up until about 1960 or 62 – I’m not positive. I think it may have been 60 – could not succeed themselves. Now, only Fulton County could. And Charlie Brown had been able to succeed himself for several elections. He was the senior state senator at that time. He had made some of the people mad. And they took up a little collection and wanted me to run and kind of swelled my head with that, and I agreed to run. I did not realize at the time – and I told him, I said, “If I run, I’m going to run as a Republican.” Well, some of them tried to talk me out of that, and I said, “No, I’m going to run as a Republican.” So I went ahead and qualified as Republican. I’d never been in the Republican Headquarters up until that time. And I didn’t know I was going to have opposition, but this was for the 34th Senatorial District, which basically was South Fulton at that time. And we had other state senators that had been elected two years before when the new law took effect. SHORT: Reapportionment. THOMPSON: Right. And so anyway, Guy Hill qualified against me. Now, Guy had been active in the Republican Party. I think he had run for County Commissioner two years before or something like that. He was a very fine man. But anyway, we had a primary battle. And I’d been active in my church. I’d been chairman of the official board now. Board of Stewards we called it then. I’d headed up some of the fundraising activities and president of the Sunday school class, been active in there. I was a Cub Scout master at times and been active in the Rotary Club. And, of course, I went to high school at Russell High, and a lot of people knew me there. So anyway, I think I raised about $4,000 for that particular campaign. And we had some signs printed up, which I didn’t put out during the primary at all. But when the primary occurred, I lost by two votes. I came home that night and I’d lost by two votes. Neither Mother nor Dad had voted for me, because Dad was not going to vote Republican and Mother says, “Standish made me do it.” My dad’s name was Standish Thompson. And anyway, a recount was ordered. I didn’t ask for it, but they did it anyway because there was only two votes difference. And I won by about 13 votes on the recount, and then went on and won the general election with Charlie Brown and became a state senator. But that was the way that my early politics had developed. SHORT: Before we get further into politics, let me ask you a question about your military service. You had a very distinguished military career. THOMPSON: Well, Bob, thank you. I appreciate that. Like so many people, I did what I was told to do and went where I was told to go. I did not do what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a fighter pilot. And I remember vividly when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The day after that, I was a senior in high school and I was actually 16 years old, but there must have been 8 or 10 of us that were out on the playground. There was a culvert in kind of an area, a washed area. Some of the guys were smoking, and we’d do that to hide. I wasn’t smoking at that time. But anyway, every single one of us wanted to go into service. We had heard President Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy speech, but we felt – it just motivated us. And he said, “We will proceed to ultimate victory, so help us God!” And each and every one of us wanted to go into service. Most were 17 at that time. And of all those that were there, I know four in my class that were killed during World War II. Directly across the street from me was Billy Townsend. Billy was a fine young man, but he was killed on the Invasion on Normandy. And Tom Harper lived down the street from me. Tom was killed on Iwo Jima, and actually it was the day before the real invasion. He was part of the group that were trying to destroy some of the barricades in the water to keep the landing craft from going up. But Tom lost his life there. Bobby Thompson, who is no relation to me, he was a paratrooper, and he was killed in a paratroop drop in Belgium. I think it was Operation Margaret Garden or something like that. Marvin Garden. And then Frank Henry was killed in a training accident in Memphis. So I was very fortunate I came through without being killed. But the day that I was – well, let me regress a minute. In February I became 17. And originally you had to have two years of college and be 20 before you could be an aviation cadet. But they had changed the rules, stating that if you were 17 and you passed the aviation cadet exam and you had your parents permission, you could become an aviation cadet. Without my parents knowing it, I went downtown and took the aviation cadet exam and passed it. I had been president of the Model Airplane Club in Russell High, which I’d built a lot of model airplanes. But I was very interested in flying. And my brother, who was a pilot, he has another story. But anyway, neither Mother nor Dad would allow me to go in service. They wouldn’t sign for me. So the day that I was 18 I went to the draft board and I said, “I’ve already passed the aviation cadet exam. Now, I want to go.” And so about two weeks later they had me on a troop train heading to Texas, and I just knew that I was going to be going to Aviation Cadet’s. But I ended up in Abilene, Texas, in the 90th Infantry Division. And I went to the company commander, I said, “Look, there’s a mistake.” I said, “I’m supposed to be at Aviation Cadet’s.” He said, “No mistake, son. You’re in the infantry now.” (laughter) But anyway, I went through basic training. And just as we finished, orders came through transferring me to Aviation Cadet’s, and I went through the Aviation Cadet program. Went first to Wichita Falls, Texas, and had to go through basic again. I said, “This is ridiculous. I just finished basic training.” They said, “Yes, but this is Army Air Corps.” So I had to do that. Then they sent me to this college training detachment in Ada, Oklahoma, East Central State Teachers College. And I got 10 hours in a Piper Cub. They wouldn’t let me solo it, but I felt after two hours I could do it. So anyway, I went to Classification after that, and I qualified as high as you could qualify for pilot. But I also qualified as high as you could qualify for a navigator, and they said they needed navigators. Well, that broke my heart, because I wanted to be a fighter pilot. But I went through navigation school in Selma, Oklahoma. Not Oklahoma, Selma Field in Monroe, Louisiana. And then advanced navigation school at Ellington Air Force Base, Army Air Field at that time, in Houston. I loved celestial navigation. I mean, it was just something that fascinated me. And I guess I was at the top of the class, or maybe second, in that part. But anyway, they picked four of us out of the class to go to Air Sea Rescue. And I’d wanted to get in B-17s or B-24s and go to Europe. That’s what I wanted. But they then sent us down to Harlingen, Texas, for gunnery school. And I spent about a month down at Harlingen practicing aerial gunnery, and we would shoot targets being towed behind airplanes and stuff like that. They then sent us to Keesler Field, four of us, and we formed the 6th Emergency Air Sea Rescue Squadron. The 3rd had just been formed there. And while we were doing that, we did patrol in the Gulf of Mexico looking for German subs. We never spotted one, but some of those in our organization did spot some. [phone ringing] And I’m just going to let that ring. And anyway, I was disappointed that I was in that group. We thought we were going to Europe. Our port of deportation originally was Hunter Army Air Field in Savannah. We sat there for a couple of weeks, and we waited and wondered what was happening. And then they said, “Well, the orders have changed. You’re going to the Pacific.” So we went out to the Pacific, and I ended up down in New Guinea. We had to wait about a week to make our flight from Sacramento, California, to Hickam Field in Hawaii because of headwinds. Our PBYs cruised at 109 knots, and there were pretty strong headwinds, 40 and 50 miles an hour headwinds. And they said, “Well, you’ve got 2100 miles to go and you’re just going to have to wait.” So we had to wait a while, and it slowed us down. But we made it there. Then our first duty station was Biak, New Guinea, and the 3rd Air Sea Rescue had just left Biak. But we were there, and we covered some raids around Borneo and places like that. Then we went from there up to Chiki [ph] Strip in Tacloban on Leyte. Leyte had been secured. We didn’t have any guns on our airplanes. Our airplanes were painted white. And usually we would be out away from the areas where there was active aerial combat, because we were searching for people who had gone down in the ocean. We evacuated some wounded off of Samar, which was an island just north of Leyte. There was active fighting going there. We’d land in the water and taxi up the beach and bring them back. We did that. Then we moved up to Luzon in the Philippines, first to Floridablanca, which is northwest of Subic Bay. No, San Marcelino. Excuse me. First moved to San Marcelino. That’s where the 345th Air Apaches B-25 outfit was there. Then we moved to Floridablanca, which is also known as Clark Number 5 ; it was south of Clark Field. But we would cover raids over to Indochina, Hainan Island, Hong Kong and China, from that area. And we’d have to leave about four hours or so before the bombers would because we were so darned slow. But whenever we did that, we had fighter cover. They would cover us. They had P-51s. They would rendezvous with us, and we would coordinate our rescue intents with the submarines and try to direct anybody that was hit to land by a sub so they could be picked up. And let me say this, people don’t realize the job the submariners did in Air Sea Rescue. They did a fantastic job, particularly when there were raids going on around the coast. Because they’d be a couple of miles offshore and try to get people to go in there. Probably the closest call I had during the war occurred – we were trying to follow a B-24 from the Jolly Rogers, and they were based at Mindoro, which is an island just south of Luzon. But they had been on a raid around Indochina, and we’d been out there covering. And this one 24 had been hit and had a couple of engines out, but he said he could make it back to the Philippines. Well, if we firewalled everything on the PBY and go about as fast as you could, we’d make maybe 145, 150 miles an hour. And he could slow down to about 190 miles an hour, something like that. Anyway, he ends up going in about across halfway across. There was a little reef out there called Pratas Reef, which is right in the middle of the South China Sea. This was just beyond that. We saw the debris in the water. We saw there were some life rafts, with nobody there, just floating around. And so Sy Lacour [ph] was my pilot, and we decided to land. We landed in the water, and the waves were not that rough, but the swells were about 12, 15 feet deep and maybe a hundred yards apart. So your ocean is like this, with swells, and when you’re down in the valley you can’t see much. So on a PBY we had what we called “blisters” in the back, and you could fold those up and you could get up on top of the wing. Well, I got up on top of the wing to get a better view. Because you’re sitting very low in the water, almost like you are here with the water down where this floor is, and you just can’t see that much. After about, oh, 10 or 15 minutes looking around, Sy decided that there were no survivors there. He started to take off. And there were two handholds up there. I knew what he was doing, because I mean both engines were revving up full speed. And my thought to myself at that time was, Is it going to be possible for me to hold on for about 400 miles going back to the Philippines? And then all of a sudden he cut the engines, and the nose of that PBY dove down like this in the water, and I almost went over the front of it. But I got out – got back in. I found out what happened. Carl O’Daniel, who was our radio operator – and they’d been, of course, in the blister looking for survivors – well, he’d run up there and told Sy Lacour, Lieutenant Lacour – he says, “Lieutenant Thompson’s up on the wing. Thompson’s on the wing.” But it saved my life. But other than that, I really didn’t have any close experiences. But if you look at my certificate of service, I’ve got seven battle stars on my Pacific Theater ribbon, and the reason is because we performed searches in those areas where battles were going on. And everybody in the entire squadron got them. So it looks like I had a lot more combat experience than I did. We lost three people through enemy action, and that was part of Charles Allen’s crew. He had been covering a raid up around Formosa. And here again a B-24 had been hit by ack-ack, and he was trying to make it back to the Philippines. And Charles Allen was trying to get him to ditch. He wouldn’t do it. But he said there’s an island just north of Luzon named Fuga, F-U-G-A, that he knows there a plateau, he’s going to try it there. He did and he crash-landed, and Allen flew over. And he saw some survivors standing around the airplane, so they landed in the water. But there were coral reefs around there. He couldn’t taxi up to any beach. So Studs Meyer – and we’d been together for 18 months. Studs Meyer and two of the crew got in a life raft, and they went onshore to pick them up. And it turned out there was a whole company of Japanese there. They captured them, and then they started trying to hit the airplane with machine gun fire. And Charles Allen had no choice. He just had to get out of there, because he didn’t have any guns. And they took Studs Meyer and the two others and tied them to stakes in a field and kept them there for about a week before they bayoneted and killed them. SHORT: Mm. THOMPSON: The officer in charge of that was tried for war crimes and convicted after the war was over. That was in Manila. But that was the only casualty that we had. And it really got to me, of course, because Studs and I were such good friends. He was from Buffalo, New York. But that basically was my war experience. And then went the atomic bombs were dropped, I was on Ie Shima, just off of the coast. We were dispatched to go look for survivors for the Indianapolis, which had been sunk. The Indianapolis had carried the atomic bombs and was heading toward the Philippines when it was sunk by the Japanese, but no one knew the location of it for about a week. So we started heading down there, then word got for us to come back, because they already had the ship zone and located them and so forth. So we went back to Ie Shima. And the second bomb, I guess, was dropped. And then, at that time, the Japanese sued for surrender. And MacArthur sent word to them that they were to perform certain things. They had to have two Betty Bombers, which was a twin-engine bomber, painted white with green crosses, and they were told that they were to land at Ie Shima and they would be transferred to American C-54s and carried down to Manila where they were to sign the preliminary surrender agreements. And so I was there. I took some pictures of the Japanese airplanes as they came in to land. Very, very poor quality, little bitty contact prints. And they would not let us get near the airplanes when they landed. But we were on the flight line there and saw them get out. And they had a photo op. And then later they gave us some pictures of the Japanese surrender party that came and landed. And then they flew them back and then they took off to Japan. There was a B-25 that was on a reconnaissance flight. The war, for all intents and purposes, was over, and there really wasn’t any active fighting going on. But the crew of the B-25 had engine problems, and they had landed at a Japanese naval air station called Oitta, O-I-T-T-A, on the Inland Sea. And we were told, dispatched, to go up there and pick up the crew. And I guess this was just about September the 2nd. It may have been the day before or the day after, something like that. But I remember we landed in the water and then we taxied up, and then you can drop the wheels on a PBY and taxi up on the ramp. And we went in, and this Japanese naval lieutenant met us, and I thought that – he was not a friendly soul. But they took us to the Governor’s palace and fed us the green tea, and we met the B-25 crew, which we picked up and came on back. Then we went back and they said, “All right. You’re going – tomorrow or the next day you’re part of the occupation troops.” So we flew into a place called Konoya, which is on the southern tip of Japan, right across Kagoshima Bay, Kagoshima being one of the largest cities there. And this was a Japanese Kamikaze base. Our squadron occupied the ceremonial hall where the pilots were given funerals before they would go on the kamikaze missions. And this particular base was where they had the baka bombs. That means “fool.” We called them baka bombs, but that’s a Japanese term for “fool.” And basically what a baka bomb was the nose of a torpedo and then a plywood fuselage going back, plywood wings, very limited instruments in it, and three rockets in the tail. It had to be carried by a twin engine bomber, and they would bring it within about 25 miles of the fleet and drop it. And the bomber was supposed to go back to Japan, and then they would fire the rockets as needed and die then. There were a couple of Japanese military personnel when we landed, and they didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what to do. But I remember talking to one of them that spoke English. He said he also spoke French. And I asked him, I said, “Why in the world, " ; – he told me he was going to be a kamikaze pilot, but they didn’t have any airplanes the baka bombs in. The Navy and the Army Air Corps just about destroyed all of their twin-engine airplanes. And I asked him, I said, “You’re educated. Why would you commit suicide?” And do you what his answer was? He says, “If I could take just one American ship with me, it’d be the greatest thing I ever did for my country.” I never saw the guy again, but that was the dedication that they had. And another funny thing is, after that, there were a few Japanese soldiers or navy personnel around for about a day. And then I don’t know what happened. They just disappeared. They just vanished. We did not see a Japanese woman for about two weeks. And I think the reason is they thought we were going to kill and rape all of them. But back in the hills they had caves. And they had machine shops in the caves. They had bunks in there. The bunks, which started about here, about four or five deep, and they had about this much space for them to sleep in, with straw mats, and that’s where the soldiers were. But they also had about 300 or 400 of these baka bombs stored there, but they couldn’t use them because they didn’t have any way of launching them. So that was basically what happened. Now, I had enough points to come home at that time. And I remember our squadron commander came over and he said, “Lieutenant Thompson, how’d you like to be adjutant of the squadron?” I says, “Gosh, that’d be great. I’d appreciate that.” What I didn’t know was that meant I had about another four or five months of occupation time. But anyway, he made me adjutant, and I stayed on for three or four months in Japan, then came back. And they wouldn’t let us fly our airplanes back. Our airplanes were destroyed, and they took bulldozers and bulldozed them into the ocean. They took brand new engines that’d been pickled – what we called “pickled.” They’re encased in wooden crates with plastic around them to preserve. And they put those in the ocean, just destroyed all kind of equipment like that. But we had to come home on a liberty ship, and it took us almost 20 days. But I came on home. SHORT: And went to Emory University. THOMPSON: I went to Emory University. And actually, I had gone to North Georgia College for one quarter before that. My dad wanted me to be a doctor. So I wanted to go to North Georgia. I did. And then in the fall, he agreed – he said, “You’re either going to go to Emory or I’m not going to pay for your education.” So I went to Emory for a quarter. And I wasn’t a very good student, I don’t think, because I was not real interested in it. I was just waiting till I was going to be 18. And then I had the time that I went in service. But when I came back, I got out of service, and, Bob, the most important thing happened to me in my entire life. I came home and I took my uniform off, and it was St. Patrick’s Day. I put my high school sweater on. This was a Sunday, the 17th of March. And I went to the old soda fountain across from Russell High, and I met one of my friends outside, Robert Moore. We went inside, and I looked and I saw the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life, and she turned out to be my wife later on. But I thought she was really sophisticated. She had a black dress on and she’d been to church and so forth. And anyway, we went over to talked to them. And I asked her for a date and she agreed. We went to the Varsity that night. So I thought I had to dress up, because there she was, dressed up. I took my high school sweater off, put a suit and tie on. She went home and she put on saddle oxfords and a sweater. (laughter) But eight months later we were married, and we’ve been married over 62 years now. But that was probably the most eventful thing in my life. SHORT: You became a lawyer then. THOMPSON: Well, not initially. I stayed in the Reserves and I would fly on weekends at Dobbins. Made $54 every weekend I flew. And I’m telling you, that was big money back then. Now, on the GI Bill I went to Emory. I graduated from Emory. About the same time I graduated, I had a son. And then I was called back into service in 1950. And when I was called back in, I said, “Look, I wanted to be a pilot.” So they said, “Well, go ahead and apply for pilot training.” So I did and I went through pilot training. And here again I wanted to be a fighter pilot. But because I was already a navigator, they said, “You’re going to multiengine.” So I went to multiengine training and learned to fly B-25s. And then I was assigned to the 306 Bomb Wing at MacDill, which was a B-47 outfit. And the reason for that was that I had the ratings of navigator, pilot, and bombardier and, actually, radar operator. And to fly a B-47 is basically a two-man crew. You had to have that. The B-47 was our first jet bomber, you know. SHORT: Mm-hm. THOMPSON: And so I was down there for a short time. And then they formed a joint atomic task force. And that joint atomic task force was to conduct atomic tests out in the Pacific, and we actually exploded the first hydrogen bomb. But I was transferred to Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, and there we were flying B-50s. And we conducted a number of tests out in Nevada, dropping atomic bombs and testing them. And then went out to the Pacific and exploded the first hydrogen bomb, which was not an airdrop. It was built in a shed on a little atoll off of – oh, we were on Kwajalein Eniwetok. And I remember seeing that. And they had a tunnel going about 150 feet to Instrumentation. And Dr. Plank, a PhD, was in our VOQ with us, and he was one of the head scientists. And he said they were going to get some instrumentation off that. But I don’t know how they did, because when that thing went off, it vaporized the whole damn island and just everything. But we had to send sampling airplanes through the clouds for 14 hours. And we’d send them in at anywhere from 1500 feet up to 42,000 feet. We had one casualty, Robbie Robinson. He was an F-84 pilot. And we had F-84s to do sampling. The F-84G is a straight-wing airplane. And on the tip tanks, they had a screen. And they would fly into the cloud and collect debris from it as Dr. Plank would direct various things. But we followed it for about 14 hours. And the airplanes had to refuel, all of the fighters had to refuel. But Robbie went in at 42,000 feet. And at 42,000 feet, an F-84G, that’s about the service to ceiling. It’s only able to indicate about 510 knots or something like that, and it’s just staggering. But anyway, he spun out. He came out on the wrong side of the cloud and started heading the wrong way. We had transponders to keep track of them, but nobody could pick him up. Because the electric interference in the cloud was so great, when they would go in, we’d lose it. But he went out on the other side and started heading the wrong way. And then when we finally did get him, we couldn’t get a tanker to him in time and he went in. And that was the only casualty. It was called Operation Ivy, and the hydrogen bomb was called the Mike shot. We earlier had exploded the King shot, was the most powerful atomic bomb that had ever been exploded. But it was a piker compared to that hydrogen bomb. I mean, that hydrogen bomb was just – I was about 30 miles away up at about 30,000 feet. And I’m telling you, it was like 1,000 flashlights going off compared to the atomic bomb. But people don’t understand the power of hydrogen bombs. And if you had one explode over Five Points, say at 2500 feet, it would absolutely vaporize the concrete and steel buildings there. I mean, the destructive power is just unbelievable. SHORT: Frightening. THOMPSON: It is frightening. We cannot afford to have a nuclear exchange. But anyway, that’s basically my military experience. And as I said, I’m not a hero in any way whatsoever. But like so many people in our World War II roundtable, we have some real heroes in there. And I could take a long time to tell you some of the stories they have, but some of them are really great heroes. But most of us there, we have some who were in the Quartermaster. And one signal corps, he was stationed on Iceland during the entire war, and he had to keep track of all the airplanes going back and forth. But that was very important, too. SHORT: Mm-hm. THOMPSON: Then we have one that was on the Bataan Death March, and he tells his story. And we have a number that were in D Day and the Battle of the Bulge and others. It’s very disturbing to hear some of the stories. But basically that’s my war experience. SHORT: Well, let’s get around to you becoming a lawyer. THOMPSON: The reason I became a lawyer was this: after I got out of service in 1953, I guess it was, I remember General Blanchard was upset with me because he wanted me stay me to stay in, wanted me to become regular, and I told him that I figured I either had to be a civilian or be career military and my wife didn’t want me to be career military. So anyway, I got out and I went with Associated Aviation Underwriters. And, gosh, it was a fortune, and I got that job almost immediately when I got back. They had an ad in the paper ; I answered it, and they said, “Yes, we want you.” So there were two of us in the office. And Associated Aviation Underwriters was an association of 40 stock companies: Firemen’s Fund, Great America, a number of – but Insured Eastern, TWA, American, U.S. Steel, General Motors, and a lot of private airplanes and so forth. We in effect were the aviation department for 40 stock insurance companies. And as part of my duties, I had to coordinate the lawsuits we had going in the Southeast. And I was given an airplane, and I had 11 Southeastern states I would cover. And I would work with attorneys that were handling claims that we had various places. I decided I need to be a lawyer. I had an AB degree from Emory. But I was full-time. I wish I could have gone to Emory, but I went to Woodrow Wilson at night. I would time myself so I could come in two nights a week, and I’d fly back in for that, then I’d fly back out the next night. Two years of doing that and I was president of the graduating class. I think there were only two of us that passed the bar exam at that. But I did that. Then Harvey Watt wanted to give me a raise and to leave Associated Aviation. I went with him. He had formed the loss of license insurance program for pilots. If they could not pass their physical, they’d get $50,000. And I helped sign up United Airlines and several others on that payroll deduction for him. And then I thought, well, I’ll go into private practice for law. And the reason was that I knew practically every fixed-base operator in the Southeast, and I’d been in talking with them and so forth and so on. And it was kind of tough initially, but I had a number of cases come to me because they knew I had the aviation experience and I was a lawyer, and it was working out pretty darn good. And then that’s when I got involved in politics. I was in the East Point Rotary Club, and several of the people wanted me to run against Charlie Brown. And at that time I told them, I said, “Well, I’ll run.” They’d taken up a collection and got something like a couple of hundred dollars, and it kind of swelled my head. And I’d been thinking about politics to some degree anyway. My dad had been in politics, even though he was a Democrat. But I finally said, “Okay, I’ll run, but I’m going to run as a Republican.” Well, a couple of them didn’t like that, but they said, “Well, that’s all right. We just want you to get rid of Charlie Brown.” (laughter) And Charlie actually was a very fine public servant. He had been around a long time as County Commissioner. He was the Senior State Senator. And so anyway, I qualified. I’d never been in the Republican Headquarters. I went up there to qualify, and they said, “Who are you?” I said, “I’m Fletcher Thompson. I want to qualify for the State Senate.” The day after I qualified, Guy Hill qualified. Guy had been active in Republican Party politics. He’d run for county commissioner two years before and didn’t win. But anyway, we had a primary battle. And I went home the night of the primary election. I’d lost by two votes, and neither Mother nor Dad had voted for me. And Dad was not going to vote in the Republican primary, and Mother says, “Standish made me do it.” But we had a recount, and I won by about 13 votes. Then I went on and defeated Charlie Brown and was elected to the Senate. SHORT: So when you served in the Senate, you were a very rare individual because there weren’t very many Republicans. THOMPSON: That’s true. Dan McIntyre, I think, was our first Republican. He had been elected two years before. He was from Fulton County. And we had Wiley Wasden from Savannah and Frank Miller from Dekalb County, and myself. We were all elected at the same time. And as a state senator, I learned some very good political lessons. One lesson was this, that you don’t have the power you think you have. I know I had a reporter from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution come to me, and he says, “Fletcher, do you know that the state patrol only has the right to enforce traffic laws and the laws of segregation?” And I said, “No, I didn’t.” He said, “Yes.” He says, “In fact, if there’s corruption in a county, even the GBI can’t go in and investigate that unless the Sherriff or the County Commissioner invite them in.” And I said, “Well, what if the Sheriff and County Commissioner are involved in the corruption?” “Well, they can’t become involved in that unless they’re invited in.” I said, “Well, that’s ridiculous.” So I drafted a bill to allow the GBI to go and investigate crime in any county in Georgia without being invited in. I thought, boy, this is a great thing I’m doing, I mean just fantastic. Well, we got the bill into committee, and the committee agreed to pass it. And all of a sudden there started being more sheriffs and county commissioners around the halls of the State Capitol than you’ve ever seen. And I thought that was just normal politics for what was going on. But Peter Zach Geer was the Lieutenant Governor, and Peter Zach was a very imposing person. I mean, he was very dignified and had a lot of authority with his approach and so forth. But he was chairman of the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee determined whether or not you could have something voted on. And I remember going in when they were considering this bill. As I walked in the door, he says, “Fletcher, are you here about that bill that’s dead?” I said, “Governor, that bill’s not dead.” I said, “It’s up before your committee to vote on.” He says, “It’s dead!” And it was. (laughter) Later on, after I was gone, it was changed. But that was a good political lesson I had there. One other thing that happened to me in the State Senate – well, there are a couple things. That was about the time that we were talking about creating MARTA. And the counties of Fulton, Dekalb, Clayton, Cobb actually, and Gwinnett were involved in it. And each county was to select a representative and a senator to serve on a drafting committee. Well, the senators from Fulton County decided to elect me to be on that drafting committee, which I was very honored because I think there was seven at that time and five were Democrats, only two Republicans. But I was on the drafting committee, and Jack Etheridge was on the drafting committee representing the House part. But we worked until two o’clock in the morning drafting the MARTA Authority Act. Ben Johnson from Dekalb County, he was dean of Emory Law School, he really did the bulk of the work on it, because he brought us in initially a proposed authority act and we went through it. And this was when the newspapers and I became at cross things, because they said that I was being obstructionist, because I was probably about the only one insisting that all bids be competitive bids for the highest and best bid. And I fought that for four or five nights, and they would publish articles about how I was deterring things. And poor Ben, he would go back that night and then they’d bring some new wording in the next night, and we’d been arguing and arguing and arguing. But I ended up being one of the co-authors of the MARTA Authority Act, along with the others there. Two other things I wanted to get done at that time. I wanted a uniform emergency telephone number for the fire and police for Atlanta, Dekalb County, Fulton County, Marietta, East Point, College Park, Decatur and so forth, so people would just call one number and do that. I also wanted all law enforcement vehicles in Georgia to be pained the same color, and that was whether they were a sheriff or local police or a state trooper, whatever. And the reason for that was I felt it was give more of a presence of police and people wouldn’t know whether or not it was a local sheriff or state patrol or whatever. But I was never able to get any support on that. I drafted a bill for a uniform emergency telephone number. And Bill Bryant was a lobbyist for Southern Bell, and he was one of the nicest guys you’ve ever known. I don’t know if you ever knew Bill. SHORT: I knew Bill. THOMPSON: But Bill was a fine person. And he came to me and he says, “Fletcher, would you please hold off on that.” He says, “You’re going to cause all kinds of problems.” He said, “We’re not equipped to do anything like this.” He says, “Bring it in next session.” So I agreed to do that, and I forgot about it. Well, then I got into the congressional thing. And the way that that happened was Jim O’Callaghan had run in 1964 for Congress against Charles Weltner. Charles Weltner had defeated James Davis who was longtime congressman there. And Jim O’Callaghan carried almost all the white precincts, but he only got two percent of the black vote. But Weltner defeated him fairly easily. And we could not get anybody to run as a Republican against Charles Weltner. I remember going to Rodney Cook’s home and being there until about two o’clock in the morning, a group of us, trying to get him to run, and he wouldn’t do it. He would not do it. The next day – now, I guess this is in April or something like that, maybe May, before qualifying was ending – we were in the Republican Headquarters and everybody descended on me to run. I said, “Look, I think I can be reelected to my state senate seat. I don’t want to run for Congress.” And they kept after me and after me, and I said, “Well, look, my wife doesn’t want me to run. I’m sure of that.” Well, I didn’t know it, but somebody went out and called her, came back and said, “We just talked to your wife, and she said she’s not going to keep you from running.” So anyway, I said, “All right. I’ll agree to run on one occasion – one thing. I will never ask anybody for a political contribution. Now, I want you to understand that. You’re going to have to raise all this money. I’m not going to do it. I’m just not going to do it. I think I’m being made a sacrificial lamb.” But anyway, I agreed to run, I qualified. And I guess – I don’t know the exact date, but it may have been as late as June, may have been as early as April. I don’t know the exact date we had for qualifying in at that time, but it was on the last day. Jean Ferst was a very active Republican. And the reason they wanted me to run, they said, Look, you’re from the south side. It’s been Democrat mainly. You’re well known there. You’ve been elected. You’ve defeated the senior state senator in that area. And Buckhead is primarily Republican. And there are a lot of Northerners that have moved down from Massachusetts and Illinois and Pennsylvania and so forth and settled in Roswell and Alpharetta and Sandy Springs, and that area is Republican. If we can put the Republican North and the Democrat South with your vote together, we think you’ll have a chance.” Well, as I said, I said, “All right, I’ll do it. But I’m never going to ask for a political contribution.” And they raised the money for the campaign. Out of the clear blue, there was a guy by the name of Hal Phillips that called, and he wanted to know if he could run the campaign. And this, I guess, was in June, maybe as late as July. And Hal was a graduate student at Harvard Business School. He had already graduated from Harvard. And he said he just wanted to have the experience of doing it. So he came down and he became our campaign manager. And we had a hard time raising money. And all the time they were telling me, “Well, go see so-and-so and ask him for some money and he’ll give you some money.” I said, “Look, I’ve told you, I’m not going to go begging for campaign contributions. I’ll do it for somebody else, but I’m not going to do it for myself.” But anyway we go along. And Lester Maddox was running and Ellis Arnall were running in the Democratic primary. Everybody figured Lester didn’t stand a chance, because he had run blacks out with ax handles and guns out of his Pickrick restaurant and so forth. And we figured Ellis Arnall would easily defeat him. Well, lo and behold, when the primary occurred, Ellis Arnall defeated Lester Maddox for the Democratic primary. When that happened, I remember Hal Phillips saying, “Fletcher, you’re going to be elected to Congress.” I said, “But we’ve still got a battle.” He said, “I’ll tell you, he’s not going to get 98 percent of the black vote, because they’re not going to vote a straight Democratic ticket with Lester Maddox heading it up. It’s not going to happen.” We felt very good about that. So things rock along. And then toward about the last week of September, one of the girls in our campaign headquarters came to me and said, “Mr. Thompson, do you know that this guy Mason is a Weltner spy?” And this is something that I’ve never put out for publication before, but it’s the truth. And he was a very nice guy. He was maybe 60 years old. But he would open envelopes. He would seal envelopes. He would make calls. He would do anything that was needed there. And I said, “What do you mean?” They said, “Well, we saw him go into the Weltner headquarters about two or three days ago after he left here, and we thought, well, we’ll just follow him the next day.” And they said, “We followed him for three days. And after he leaves here, he goes to the Weltner headquarters.” Well, I went to Hal Phillips and I said, “Hal, look, get rid of him.” He says, “Just calm down.” He says, “I know all about it.” He says, “I’ve got a plan.” I said, “What do you mean, you’ve got a plan?” He says, “Well, I’ll show you.” He had a calendar which was about this size, and it was the month of October, big squares for each day. If you looked at that, on the 15th of October, you would see the damndest media blitz that anybody had ever put on in Atlanta. Sixty-thirty there’d be a 30-second spot on WAGA TV, WSB TV and so forth, all of those, and he had that going on for about two weeks. I said, “Well, what are you going to do with it?” He said, “I am going to make it available to this guy Mason.” And I said, “What? What?” I said, “We don’t have any money for that. He knows that.” He said, “I’ve got a bunch of fake deposit slips over here.” He says, “Everybody knows they’re not supposed to go in my drawer,” and he said, “I’m going to make it available to him.” Well, it was Friday, I guess about the last of September, and he made it available by telling this guy, he says, “Look, would you please take care of all of the office? I’m going to take all the girls out for lunch. They’ve been working real hard. He had taken and he’d put some dots around where things were in his draw, and he also put a piece of scotch tape back on the end of the drawer so if it was opened, it would fall down. He came back and the scotch tape had fallen and things were moved around. Well, we didn’t think much of it except for the fact that that had happened. As I said, that was Friday. Well, Monday morning I’m getting ready to go to a debate at the Buckhead Rotary Club with Charles Weltner ; he’s the incumbent congressman. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution called and said, “What do you think about Congressman Weltner quitting the race?” I said, “What?” He said, “Yes, he said he will not run on the same ticket with Lester Maddox, that he just simply will not do it.” That floored me. I really didn’t know exactly what to say. But I said “Well, I just don’t know exactly what to say, but we’ll just see what happens.” Well, the interesting thing is that this guy Mason never showed up again. We never saw him again. He never came to our headquarters. Now, I don’t know if he gave that information to Weltner or not. I don’t know if that was the thing that tipped it, but I know that Weltner knew he was already in trouble. And if he thought we had that going, I’m of the personal opinion – this is strictly my opinion. This is not a fact, and I never accused him of it at all. Never accused him at all. But I think that they got that information, and he thought he was already in trouble and we would have this blitz, and what Hal Phillips was tip the scales and got him to quit, which was kind of unprecedented at the time. That was October the 3rd when he quit. Of course the election was the first Tuesday in November. They had about four weeks for the election, and they took four or five days to get a substitute in there. Wyman C. Lowe had been running against Weltner in the primary and he came in second. He wanted to be the candidate. But the State Democratic Executive Committee picked Archie Lindsey, who was a very prominent person from Roswell – he was the Chairman of the Fulton County Commission – to run against me. Well, poor Archie didn’t have but about three weeks to put a campaign on, and so naturally I won the race and went on to Congress. And I was looking forward to being sworn in with everybody else and getting my office all set. And then the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives called me and says, “Mr. Thompson, you may have to stand aside and not be sworn in at the same time everybody else is.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, a protest has been filed to your election.” And I said, “What?” He said, “Yes, a protest has been filed.” I said, “Well, what happened?” And he said, “Well, a man by the name of Wyman C. Lowe is protesting it, and we have to have a hearing and look into it, and he’s coming up here.” So he came up there and he appeared before – I guess it would be a subcommittee. I don’t know the exact committee. I never met him when he came up. They never asked me to come and testify. But his argument was that he had gotten the second most votes in the Democratic primary, and the Democratic Executive Committee should have picked him as the candidate rather than Archie Lindsey. And had they have picked him as the candidate rather than Archie Lindsey, he could have defeated me and he would be the one that would be the representative. Well, they threw that out and I went ahead and was sworn in. But that was an interesting thing that happened. Well then, of course, I was able to be sworn in as a representative and as a freshman Republican trying to field my way around. And I know that one of the first things that happened, we had a bill come up before Congress and it had a great deal of support. Obviously it was going to pass, but I felt as though I had to say something. I mean, heck, I’m a member of Congress ; I want to have a say-so. So I got up and I was making a statement in front of it. Les Arends was our whip. Les was a crusty old guy from Illinois, a longtime Republican, real nice guy. And Les pulled on my shoulder kind of, and he says, “Fletcher, everybody’s going to vote in favor of this bill.” He said, “You’re going to talk them out of it.” So I decided I didn’t need to say anything more on that. But another interesting thing happened. This was 1967, and we got a call from Bill Bryant that AT& ; T had been working on this telephone number, uniform telephone number. And some of the AT& ; T people came in my office and said, “Look, we have a number, 911. And if we can get a number of people in Congress to support it and we get some federal funding, it’ll be not just for Georgia, it’ll be for the entire nation.” So I was one of the cosponsors of the 911 legislation in 1967. And I don’t know whether or not what I did in the Georgia State Senate had to do anything with it or not, but apparently from what Bill said, they were working on it at the time. So I actually cosponsored that legislation. In getting committee assignment initially, George H. W. Bush and I were elected at the same time. And it was interesting that among the freshman Republicans he stood out, because he obviously had pull. He got on the Ways and Means Committee right off, and for a freshman Republican to be on Ways and Means Committee was something. But he and I became good friends, and we’d have breakfast together and discuss bills before Congress and so forth. And the war in Vietnam was going on. It was very controversial. And I was a big supporter of it. Lyndon Johnson, of course, was president at that time. And I remember Richard Russell, who was Chairman of the Armed Services Committee – well, I guess this must have been the first part of 1968. I’d been elected president of the freshman Republicans. We called it the 90th Club, and those were the Republicans elected in 1966 starting in 1967. But this was 68. And I’d been elected president, and Richard Russell called. He said, “I want you to come over and meet the President, Lyndon Johnson. I said, “Well, I appreciate it.” I said, “I’ve seen him.” But anyway, we go over and go in the Oval Office and sit down. I think I said, “Hello, Mr. President. Goodbye, Mr. President.” But the interesting thing was that he and Lyndon Johnson were arguing the war in Vietnam. And Dick Russell was saying, “We simply cannot stand there and just wait for them to come over. We’ve got to go and invade North Vietnam. We’ve got to get up and go into Hanoi.” And Lyndon Johnson says, “If we do that, the Chinese are going to come in, and we can’t afford it. But we’re going to persevere.” And these are almost the exact words he said, “I don’t care how long it takes, we’re going to persevere. They come across the DMZ, we’re going to knock them back. And we’ll persevere and we’ll win.” Well, we didn’t persevere. They persevered. The American public turned against the war in Vietnam. And although it was President Kennedy who sent the first troops in, it was a noble thing he was doing. We weren’t seeking territorial gain. We weren’t seeking any oil or anything like that. We were simply trying to help the South Vietnamese maintain their own form of government and not become Communists. And, of course, when he was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson became president, Lyndon Johnson escalated it greatly. But in the escalation, the American troops had their hands tied behind them, because they could not go into North Vietnam. They could conduct basically defensive acts, but not offensive. Later on they did have some air raids in there, and I had some friends who were taken as prisoner. But there was a group that came into my office, and it may have been as late as ‘69, and they were going to close my office down. They were from Atlanta, long-haired, and they were against me because I was supporting what was being done in Vietnam. And I told my office staff, I said, “Just let them sit here as long as they want to.” For about a day and half they just shut the office down. Then they got tired and they left. But the interesting thing is that years later, I’m practicing law and I’m a member of the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce, and one of the people there comes to me and says, “Fletcher, do you remember that group that came in and had that sit-down in your office?” I said, “Yes, I sure do.” He said, “I was one of them.” He said, “I had long hair.” And he says, “You told us that ‘one day you’ll become part of the establishment.’ “ He says, “I am part of the establishment.” He now holds the Chair of Free Enterprise at Kennesaw State University. But it was interesting. SHORT: Those were very testy times in our country. THOMPSON: Oh, very, very testy. SHORT: What was the reaction of the majority of Congress to those demonstrations and bombings and things that were going on around the country? THOMPSON: There was a division among the members of Congress, but basically I think more members were in support of it than were opposed to it. But of course we had the Jane Fonda incident, and I became a spokesman on that. And what astounded me was I couldn’t get any support for that. I remember driving into the Capitol and hearing Jane Fonda on the radio. And basically what she was doing, she was broadcasting to the American troops in South Vietnam from Hanoi and telling them to disobey their officers’ and commanders’ orders and so forth and to just stop the activities, which was treason. And I took the floor of the House – I was the first one to do it – and I said, “This is treason, and we should have the Justice Department investigate this.” I wrote a letter to the Justice Department, and I thought I could get more support. But I had a lawyer call me representing Jane Fonda, and he said, “Look, Congressman. You made these statements on the floor of the Congress, which you know you’ve got immunity, and you won’t go out and make it in public.” I said, “Listen, you come out, I’ll make it on the street corner out here. And you want to sue me? You go ahead and sue me.” Well, I never heard anything more from them. But the interesting thing was that I really could not get much support among members of the Congress to bring charges against Jane Fonda. And I’m convinced to this day that it was treason and it cost the lives of many American troops. There’s no question about it. But that was just one of those things that occurred. SHORT: How partisan was the House of Representatives in those days? THOMPSON: Very partisan, but not as partisan as it is today. I was in the minority. And when I went in, I was put on the – it used to the old House on American Activities Committee and the Post Office Committee. And I remember John Ashbrook from Ohio, he was a Republican, he wanted me to go look at the FBI file on Martin Luther King. I said, “No, I’m not going to do it. I just don’t care to.” But he was – the Democrats didn’t like him at all. They didn’t really bother me or did not like me. I felt as though I was liked. But I was also one that had a bill to allow a child to go to the neighborhood school. And I mentioned earlier this Jean Ferst who was heading up a fundraiser for me when I first ran. Her husband Bob Ferst was president of Scripto. And I told them that I was going to get this bill. Well, I had the bill drafted, and I gave a copy to every member of the Congress. And I had a Scripto pen that says, “From Congressman Fletcher Thompson. Please sign this.” And anyway, the Atlanta newspapers gave me the devil. Said I was bigoted, I was a racist, and it just was not true. The statement I made was this: It’s absurd to say a black cannot learn unless he’s in with whites. If you’re saying that, you are insulting the entire black race to say you can’t learn with people of your own race, you’ve got to be with somebody else. If a school is inferior, that school needs to be improved and you need to spend the funds on it, and that’s what I would want to do. But a child should be able to go to his neighborhood school and not be bused sometimes for hours just for racial balance. And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was very violently opposed to me on that. And then, as you probably remember, in 1968 I had another race with Charles Weltner. And at this time I was the congressman, and Charles Weltner, of course, was trying to get his seat back. Lou Kitchens was my campaign manager at that time. Now, what I’m about to tell you is basically hearsay, because I don’t have firsthand information, but this is what Lou tells me. Lou says that in the Democratic primary there was a professor from Atlanta University by the name of – I believe it was Malcolm Dean – I’m not positive of these names, but I think that was his name – that ran against Julian Bond. And he had called Lou and talked to Lou, and he says that, “If Fletcher Thompson doesn’t have an honest vote in the general election, he’s going to lose.” And Lou says, “What do you mean?” He says, “Well, if you look at the results of some of the black precincts, they have 85 percent turnout.” He says, “I know that 85 percent did not turn out in those precincts.” He says, “It couldn’t have been more than 50 percent.” And Lou says, “Well, what were they doing?” He says, “Well, they were voting for Julian Bond.” Julian was this student non-violent coordinating committee, and he had some objection to Julian being seated in the Georgia General Assembly. Well, the Georgia General Assembly, or the House of Representatives, made Julian a national figure by refusing to seat him. If they had just gone ahead and seated Julian, there would have been nothing to it. But they refused, and there was a big controversy and so forth and so on. But anyway, Lou said that he had to come up with something to be certain that we got an honest vote in the black community, that we couldn’t have an 85 percent turnout. He came up with the idea of hiring Pinkerton detectives, and we hired 40 Pinkerton detectives to cover the black precincts from seven o’clock in the morning till seven o’clock at night. They had relief for them during the day. And their sole function was to take a hand-counter and count the people that were going in to vote. And if more votes were cast than people went in, we were going to challenge it in court. At that time the law of Georgia was that each party could have official federal election – official observers of the Republican Party or Democratic Party. He had badges for these Pinkerton detectives, who were in uniform, that said “Official Federal Election Observer of the Republican Party,” and it was in the shape of a shield. Well, now I’m not here, but I’m told that by nine o’clock they had us in court, in Fulton Superior Court, seeking to enjoin our Pinkerton detectives as our poll watchers. And the judge says, “Well now, what are they doing?” They said, “Well, they’re intimidating the voters, trying to keep them out and trying to keep the blacks from voting.” He says, “Well now, is that true?” And our attorney says, “No.” I think Oscar Persons was probably the attorney. But he says, “No, that’s not true at all, your Honor.” He says, “We just want to be sure we have a good honest vote in it.” They said, “Well, yeah, but that badge they have on says ‘Official Federal Election Observer of the Republican Party. And the uniforms and everything, it’s intimidating.” He then asked Weltner’s attorney, he says, “Well now, does Mr. Weltner have any observers?” He said, “Oh, yes. We’ve got an observer in each one of the polls.” “Well, what do they have?” “Well, they’ve got a letter in their pocket.” He said, “I think you’d better have them take and pin that letter on their coat,” and he refused to enjoin them. But the interesting things was that the turnout in the black community was down to about 50 percent, and as the incumbent congressman, I defeated Weltner pretty handily at that time, too. I even got some black votes. But bear in mind, C.A. Scott, who was the editor of the Atlanta Daily World . . . SHORT: Was a Republican. THOMPSON: He was a Republican. He supported me. He endorsed me and so forth. And I had some very good friends. And I had made good friends with Horace Ward, a black senator, and Leroy Johnson. They were good friends of mine, even though they were Democrats, when I was in the State Senate. So anyway, I won that election. Then in 1970, Andrew Young ran against me. And at that time I was in Washington, and this program came on, Black Panthers in America. And I was watching it, and here is Andrew Young and they have him speaking. And these are, I believe, the exact words that he said. You’d have to get the actual clip. “The United States and Western civilization has so enslaved Latin America, Africa and Asia, it may take the destruction of Western civilization to truly liberate these areas.” The moderator then asked him, “Well, would you support the destruction of Western civilization to do that?” He said, “Yes, I probably would.” And that was an excerpt out of the 30-second spot about the Black Panthers. Well, I called down here to see what people thought about it. Channel 11 was the ABC station at that time. And they said it wasn’t played, it wasn’t shown down here. So I contacted a vice president of ABC and asked if he could get me a copy of that Black Panther thing, which he did. And we brought it down and tried to see if we could get the radio stations to show it, but none of them would do it. Or TV stations, none of them would show it. So we set up several places in Roswell, Alpharetta, South Fulton and downtown Atlanta where we showing that clip out of it if anybody wanted to come in and see it. WSB came in and they actually filmed it of the screen, and they did put it on WSB TV. But I was accused of mudslinging. They said that was the dirtiest tactic that anybody had ever pulled. I said, “Look, those are his words. They’re not my words. I’m not saying that’s what he said. That’s what he actually said.” He said it was taken out of context. Well, if you took the context of the whole Black Panther thing, it would scare the devil out of you, the other guys they had in there. But that was precisely what he said. And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution just gave me fits about it. But anyway, I defeated him. SHORT: You defeated him. You defeated him, a very strong candidate. You defeated the former congressman. THOMPSON: Right. SHORT: A very strong candidate. And yet you decided to run for the United States Senate. Didn’t you think your seat was pretty safe? THOMPSON: No, not at all. Because after the 1970 census, they had reapportioned and made the 5th District majority black. Bear in mind, Roswell and Alpharetta and so forth had been taken out of it. And I didn’t think I could defeat Andrew Young in ‘72. Senator Russell had died maybe 18 months before, and Jimmy Carter, who was the Governor, had appointed David Gambrell to fill the unexpired term. And David Gambrell was running for reelection, so I decided the best thing for me to do would be to run for reelection to the United States Senate. Now, I understand that Bo Callaway also wanted to run. I never had a personal conversation with Bo, but this is what some people in the party told me. And if there was a poll taken as to between myself and Bo Callaway among Republicans, that I was favored over Bo Callaway as being the candidate. Now, whether this is true or not, I don’t know. But I think had Bo Callaway had run, he would have won the election, because he had the money to run the election. I’d made a pledge that I would never ask for a political campaign contribution, and I stood by that. My campaign committee would get so damned mad at me. I wouldn’t sign a letter asking for that. I wouldn’t appear at a fundraising thing. I said, “I told the people when they wanted me to run initially that they were going to have to raise the money.” And we figured it was going to take a million dollars to run a statewide campaign. We had a good organization. Had a guy by the name of Harry Bandaveras out of Arizona who came and ran the campaign. I did not like the way he was running it. But I was campaigning constantly all over south Georgia and everywhere else, spending my time on it. But I didn’t have one single television ad, not even one ad to combat what the Atlanta Journal, Atlanta Constitution and WSB were saying. If you look at the election returns of the 1972 race between myself and Sam Nunn, you’ll see that I actually got more votes outside of Atlanta, down and around Brunswick and Savannah and over toward Bainbridge and out in the state than Bo Callaway had got percentagewise. But I lost it in Fulton County and Dekalb County, and even Cobb, which I barely carried which should have gone strong for me. I just didn’t do it. The end result was that I got about 47 percent, he got about 53 percent, accept for the short term. There were two votes to be cast. One was for the six-year term along with all the other candidates, and you could punch a straight Democratic ticket for that. The other was for the short term, which was just Sam Nunn and myself. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution came out afterwards and said the term from November to January the 20th, that I had won. And then they had a recount, and I didn’t win it. But I wasn’t going to take it anyway, because it would give him seniority by having that. So he was able to get extra seniority by being able to be sworn in earlier. But right after the election, T.D. James, who was my campaign treasurer, was very upset with me because I had refused to use two things against Sam Nunn during the campaign. And I think one reason I did, first of all, Sam didn’t have a drinking problem and I knew that. He didn’t have a drinking problem. But also, I had been accused of slinging mud two years before by using that thing against Andrew Young. But Sam Nunn had been involved in a controversial DUI hit and run as a young man leaving, I think, a Jaycee activity down around Macon, and they wanted me to use that against him. I said, “We’re not using it. He doesn’t have a drinking problem. We’re not going to use it.” Then the other thing was, they said, “Well, look. You’ve got a distinguished military career.” I said, “I’ve had military service. I’m really not that distinguished, but I did what I was told to do.” They said, “Well, he only served six weeks in the Coast Guard. And he stayed out of Vietnam by his uncle, Carl Vinson, was the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the House, had all kinds of influence, and he got out in order to run the family farm. I said, “I’m not going to use it.” But the day after the election, T. D. tells the press that Fletcher Thompson should have used that thing about Sam Nunn’s DUI and the accident and he wouldn’t do it. Well, I didn’t, and it was one of the mistakes I made. But I think the biggest mistake I made was in refusing to ever ask anybody for a political contribution, because we only raised about $360,000. And a group of my supporters signed a note for maybe another couple hundred thousand or so. And after the election, we raised money to get that paid off, had a fundraising thing over in Augusta. Senator Towers from Texas came over as a speaker. And we got that paid off. But I ended up having to pay off a large part of the debt myself. And it soured me on politics, because there was another thing that happened during that time that really soured me. Bear in mind, I’m the Republican candidate running for the United States Senate and had a good chance to be elected. Red Blount is the Republican candidate running for the United States Senate over in Alabama. Sparkman was a strong Democrat conservative, and Nixon liked Sparkman. But I’d been told that Nixon was going to come and campaign in Atlanta. They wanted to know if I would let my campaign staff prepare for his election. So for basically two weeks we did nothing but prepare for Richard Nixon coming down. This was for his election as president in 1972. And I was told that I’d be riding down the airplane with Nixon and he was going to endorse me, and we leaked that to the press. Leaked that to the press. A couple of days before we got a call from CRP, which was the Committee to Reelect the President. And I didn’t take it, but Richard Ashworth, my administrative assistant – they call them Chief of Staff now – took it and they said, “You’re going to have to tell Congressman Thompson that he’s not going to be able to ride down with the President because he’s not going to be able to endorse him.” And I said, “Richard, what do you mean?” He says, “Well, they said he’s got a problem. Senator Sparkman in Alabama is a good friend and he votes with him, and he cannot oppose him. And if he endorses you, he’s got to endorse Red Blount in Alabama. So he’s not going to endorse either one of you.” Well, I’d already leaked to the press the fact that he would be endorsing it. Then they came in and said, “Well, you understand you’re going to be riding down with the President.” I said, “No. Look, I’m a Georgian.” I’m going to be down there and I’m going to shake his hand when he came on in. Well, I didn’t get any endorsement. Jimmy Carter, we all know we made mistakes in it together, he made a big thing out of it. He says, “The President would just as soon have Sam Nunn as Fletcher Thompson. He wouldn’t even endorse him.” Well, that kind of irritated me a little bit. But I still think if I had had some TV exposure and put my own ads up that maybe I could have pulled it out. SHORT: What do you think about the cost of campaigning in modern times? THOMPSON: It’s astronomical. The National Republican Committee contacts me all the time for contributions. I’ve written them, I told them, I said, “Look, I almost decimated myself paying off my campaign contributions. I didn’t get money from you when I was running for the United States Senate. And I’ve given a little bit of money, but I’ll give my money to individual candidates.” And it’s kind of sour grapes on my part, I guess you’d say. But that’s just the way it is. SHORT: Well, when this past presidential race began, those candidates had so much money in the bank that every additional dollar they got was just juice. And don’t you think that something should be done to curtail all that spending? THOMPSON: I think that it should. However, under our Constitution, I don’t think you can prevent individuals from spending whatever they want to in support of a candidate that they like. It’s true, it does stack things in favor of those who have a lot of money. But if you look at this last election, Barack Obama obviously got a lot of votes through the internet. Or not votes, dollars through the internet that you couldn’t otherwise get. And the people did support him strongly. John McCain is a nice guy. He was not my candidate. Frankly, I would rather have seen Romney as our candidate. And whether the results had been different – or Huckabee from Arkansas, I like Huckabee, too. Either one of those, I think, would have been good. But Romney was one. And people were saying, “But he’s a Mormon.” Well, good gosh, that’s ridiculous. The press may play it up. But too much money is spent on campaigns. And I don’t know that there’s really a solution for it. SHORT: Let’s talk for a minute about the Republican Party in Georgia and its growth. You were one of the pioneers, one of the first Republicans to be elected to the Georgia Senate and to Congress. Have you been active in Republican politics since then? THOMPSON: Not really. As I mentioned, I paid off some campaign debts, printing bills and so forth, and most of them I was able to compromise. But I did that with my own money, and I didn’t ask anybody for contributions from it. The fundraising we had was basically to pay off the loans that had been made, taken by some of my supporters, and they were the ones who cosigned the notes. I never signed a note on it. I was sued by one person after that for a campaign bill which I refused to pay. And that was for an RV. My campaign committee had hired a fundraiser, and he was getting 10 percent of every dollar he would raise. Well, he rented an RV from somebody over in Thompson, Georgia, near Augusta, and they had “Fletcher Thompson, United States Senate” on it. They’d take it to Georgia football games and so forth and so on. I think they had a good time partying with it. I don’t know. But anyway, after the thing was over, he sends me a bill for something like $5,000 dollars for the use of that RV. I said, “Look, I never approved that. That was never approved by me. That was the fundraiser. He signed it in his own name.” And he said, “For the Thompson campaign.” But you can do anything, something like that, for. And I had to go to court for that, and they ruled with me, that I was not responsible for that obligation. But other than that, I think I paid off everything. SHORT: The Republican Party now controls both houses of the General Assembly and the Governor’s Office. What happened? THOMPSON: Well, I’ve got a bone to pick with the Republican Party in Georgia on a couple of things. One is this so-called privatization. I think the biggest mistake the Republican Party has made since they’ve had control was to do away with the monopoly control of the Atlanta Gas Light over gas distribution. There’s some things that you need a monopoly on. You have to have the pipelines going in. You have to have the supply, somebody taking care of it. It’s logical that the Public Service Commission should regulate that and determine what’s a fair price. The idea that you’re going to create competition by letting Atlanta Gas Light still have the expense of laying all the pipelines and so forth and then giving them a profit, and then so-called marketers coming in and they’ll say, “I’ll give you a better price than this guy will. I’ll give you a better price than this guy,” and then they put $5.95 extra on bill, it just is a disservice to the people of Georgia. I wish we could change it. And I was upset this last session when they were talking about removing from the Public Service Commission the regulation of electric rates. Sometimes people just don’t think, in my opinion. I didn’t like that. But still, I’m a Republican, and I support basic Republican policies. SHORT: Well, you’ve worked hard. And of course, Bo Callaway, he’s been very active in Georgia. THOMPSON: Bo Callaway, I still believe, would have been the senator had he have run. He had the money to run. He later ran in Colorado, as you know, and he almost won. But Gary Hart ended up there. And Bo is a fine person. He did much to build the Republican Party in Georgia. I think I had a part. I, of course, was the first Republican congressman from Georgia since Reconstruction. And one other thing, one other thing. This is something I haven’t mentioned. I was the very first person, congressman or senator from Georgia since Reconstruction, to ever appoint a black to West Point, Annapolis or the Air Force Academy. Neither our senators or congressmen before I did this had ever done it. And I didn’t give them anything. What I did when I first went in, I said, “I’m not going to make political appointments. I’m going to establish a committee, and we’re going to let people compete based upon their high school grades, their extracurricular activities, a personal interview, whether they wanted to make the military a career, and also test, which was kind of an IQ that was taken. There were five different things. And on that we had blacks qualify for the appointment. And I did that, and really the papers never made much of it at all, the fact that I did that. SHORT: What has life been like for Fletcher Thompson after politics? THOMPSON: Fletcher Thompson has been favored. He’s been very fortunate throughout my life. As I said, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve got a wonderful wife, and she’s playing bridge right now, today. She has a bridge party. But if you’d meet her, you’d love her. And I’ve got good health. I’ve had a couple of heart attacks. But I’ve won some golf tournaments. I’ve been club champion. So I’ve been very fortunate. I had a good career of law afterwards. After I got out of politics, I wanted to get back into aviation law. But I had not practiced for about seven years, and all of my clients and fixed-based operators had other lawyers representing them. And people wanted me to represent them because of my so-called political connections. I really didn’t have that. It’s kind of funny. They think because you were in Congress, you’ve got a lot of influence and so forth. You really don’t. But anyway, I’m going to tell you one funny story. I don’t know, this may be taking up your time. But G. D. Searle is the drug company that developed NutraSweet, aspartame. And as you know – oh, golly. I’ve got a senior moment. Don Rumsfeld. Don and I were in Congress together at the same time. So when they manufacture NutraSweet they have a byproduct, or a waste product, which is basically salt, but it’s contaminated with amino acids. Another interesting thing about NutraSweet, the chemical formula for it has an A side and a B side. In other words, if you look at the molecular structure, if this electron is on the right side as opposed to the left side, it’s sweet. If it’s on the left side, it isn’t sweet. In other words, half of it is sweet. And they have to separate that some way, and that becomes a waste product in the manufacture of it. So they have to get rid of this salt. If they try to refine it as road salt, it becomes too expensive. Well, they decided the best way to get rid of it would be to dump it in the ocean. And trying to figure out a place to dump in the ocean, they came upon the idea of the Savannah River and getting a place over around Augusta for a plant there and barge it out over the ocean, spray it out over the ocean. Well, I got a call, and they wanted me to represent them down here. And I was doing some work for the Atlanta Gas Light Company. And they wanted some land over there. Well, the Atlanta Gas Light Company had some land. And so I got them together with G. D. Searle, and they bought the land for the plant. Then they needed an ocean-dumping permit. Now, at this time Jimmy Carter’s governor and I’d been out of Congress a year or two. And I applied for an ocean-dumping permit. Well, Jimmy didn’t like the idea we were going to have an ocean-dumping permit off the coast of Georgia, because he says Union Carbide had been trying to get one out in Savannah for the waste products from their paper mill for years and it was being denied, and thought this would be a bad controversy. And I said, “We’re going to dump salt in the ocean.” So we hired Dames & ; Moore, a marine biology firm, and got the ocean-dumping permit, and the plant was being constructed. Well, Bill Johnson was General Counsel, and he called me one day. He says, “Fletcher, I want to go over to August and see how the construction is coming along. We’ve got another vice-president.” I said, “Well, I’ll fly you over in my airplane.” See, I had a little airplane I used to fly back and forth to Washington in. And he said, “Well, fine.” He came in and he said, “What kind of airplane have you got?” I said, “I’ve got a little Mooney.” He said, “What’s that?” “It’s a little single-engine airplane.” He says, “Gosh, we’d like to have at least two engines.” So anyway I called a friend of mine that had a Travel Air, and I’ve had a lot of experience in Travel Airs and twins and so forth. And I said, “Can I borrow your airplane? I’ve got a couple of VPs from G. D. Searle that want to go over to Augusta.” He says, “Sure, come on.” So he based it out of what’s now Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. It was Southern Airways Company, a Beechcraft distributor. We go there, a hot summer day. Pull the airplane out of the hangar, get in. I turned the switch, tried to crank the engines. The battery’s dead, and they don’t like that at all. I said, “That’s not big deal. We' ; ll just get a battery cart over here.” I said, “An airplane engine’s like a lawnmower engine. Has a Magneta. Once it gets going, it keeps going.” Bill says, “I hope it’s better than a lawnmower engine.” (laughter) But anyway, we get in the airplane and start taxiing out. It’s hot. They say, “Can we get some air in here.” I says, “Sure. I’ll pull this lever and get some airflow.” The darn thing came out in my hand. (laughter) He didn’t like that either. I said, “Bill, what I want you to do is I want you to crack that door and keep that door open as we’re taxiing out. And then, just before we take it, you’ll close it, but that will keep you kind of cool.” He didn’t like that very much, and he said, “Okay.” So we taxi out and he’s holding the door. Finally they approve us for our departure, and I filed an instrument flight plan. And on an airplane you have what’s called a transponder, which magnifies your radar signal. So the tower told me to squawk a certain frequency when I took off. I turned it on that frequency and took off. They said, “We’re not picking you up.” Now, I don’t have the earphones on. I have a speaker. So they’re hearing exactly what I’m hearing. And so I said, “Well, I guess this thing isn’t working.” And Bill says, “What does that mean? What does that mean?” I said, “Well, it’s really no big deal. They’ve got radar and they know where I am. And I’ll just climb on out.” So anyway I do, and we climb out. I got up to my cruising attitude and bringing the power back to cruise settings. And all of a sudden the tachometer starts bouncing back and forth between the [indiscernible] and the right engine. He said, What’s that for?” I said, “Bill, I don’t know.” (laughter) I said, “But it’s obvious there’s a binding somewhere in that thing. But it doesn’t make any difference.” I said, “I can synchronize the engines by sound.” And you can. You can synchronize them and get them going the same RPM by sound. Well, we go ahead and make an approach into Augusta, uneventful, land, check on the construction of the facility. This other VP had disappeared. He comes back pretty soon and he says, “We’ve got airline reservations going back.” (laughter) But Bill used to kid me about that. He later became General Counsel for GTE, and I did work for GTE and some others and so forth. But I’ve been very fortunate. SHORT: But you’ve been involved in civic matter and military. THOMPSON: Well, that’s true. I’ve got two things right now that are coming along. And one is the United Daughters of the Confederacy want me to address the Confederate Memorial Day at Oakland Cemetery. Told them they’ve got a problem. I mentioned earlier my great-grandfather. I said, “I’m afraid he was opposed to secession.” And I’ve told them about it. They said, “Well, go ahead.” But they said, “Please tell us something about states’ rights, because it was really a war between the states rather than a civil war.” I said, “Well, that’s true.” So I’m researching that. Then the other thing is Common Cause wants to give me an award here in April for some work I’ve done in the EMC. I don’t know if you’re familiar with what’s happening in Georgia EMC. But I’ve been very upset with the way that that’s happened. I’ve been very outspoken on it and have involved myself to a degree. I’m not filing lawsuits, but I have amendments through the bylaws to do away with a lot of the abuse that’s been going on by the CEO. And he basically has made himself wealthy at the expense of the members, and he’s made millions of dollars off of it. Members did not know what was going on. And it would take a long time for me to tell you what’s happening on that. SHORT: Mm-hm. THOMPSON: But then another thing that has happened – and I want to give some of this information to you. You can take this with you. It’s probably more than you want, but it involves something we as the Atlanta World War II Roundtable, a project we had. One of our members came back from Washington DC about, oh, I guess two years ago now and said he was disturbed that President Roosevelt’s closing statements of his statement following Pearl Harbor was not left on the monument, “so help me God.” And that was an exclamation that Roosevelt made, that “we will gain the ultimate triumph, so help us God.” And if you listen to his speech, he emphasized that. It is not a religious statement he’s making. It is a promise to the American people, an exclamation that we’re going to prevail. And so the people in the Atlanta World War II Roundtable said, “Well, look, Fletcher. You are a former congressman. Will you do something about it?” I said, “Well, I don’t know what I can do.” I said, “We can petition Congress for a sense of Congress resolution that they support the adding of these words to it.” So we drafted – or I drafted a petition to Congress, and this is the petition right here to the United States Congress. We sent a copy of each one of the 100 senators each one of the 435 congressman with a personal letter asking them if they would support a sense o Congress resolution simply stating that we as members of Congress believe that in order for history to accurately depict what President Roosevelt said, that this should be added to it. Got only four responses: Johnny Isakson, Saxby Chambliss, David Scott and – oh, gosh. What is our 6th District congressman? SHORT: Tom Price. THOMPSON: Tom Price. A senior moment. He’s my favorite. I support him. Always have his sign in my yard. But anyway, Tom Price gave us unqualified support. The others basically gave us lip service. Phil Gingrey didn’t even respond. And I’m the deputy commander of the World War II Roundtable. Our commander lives in his district. He talked to him personally. He said, “Well, I’d like to have some more information.” I faxed him more information. Never got any response. But when you read this, you’ll see why we think that history is not being adequately depicted on the monument. And also the reason for it is – I may be paranoid in this. But back in 1911, Congress formed the Fine Arts Commission of the United States. Now, the Fine Arts Commission is charged with the responsibility of the design of various memorials and the inscriptions that go on the memorials. The American Battlefield Association is responsible for the actual construction. They did a wonderful job in the design of the World War II memorial. But of the seven members, none are World War II veterans. Two were not even American citizens – born in America, rather. They’re American citizens now. They are noted artists and architects. Did a great job. But I think that they did not use “so help me God,” because a couple of years ago there was a big debate in America about the use of “In God we trust” on our currency. And they considered it a religious statement. And in order to be more secular, they did not want to have “so help us God," ; included on that and therefore they left it off. That’s my opinion. But when you see some of the responses we have – I wrote to George Bush, Sr. He and I were, as I said, members of Congress together. He said, “I agree with you. I’d love to have this on.” I said, “I want you to do just one thing. Call your son and tell him to tell the Interior Department to give us a cost estimate of what it would cost to get that on there.” And he said, “Fletcher, I can’t do that. He’s the President of the United States.” I said, “You’re his father.’ (laughter) But anyway, he sent it to the Interior Department, and they wrote a letter back saying that they felt as though it would not properly reflect what was historical. The historical statement was made by President Roosevelt, and it most certainly does and is. But nevertheless, that’s what you have there. And I did not get involved with other veterans organizations. It’s probably my mistake. But I was very disappointed in that. And we spent probably $400 or $500. We had $5,000 pledged toward the construction. And our idea was that if we could just get a cost of what it would cost to change the inscription on the monument – you may have to take the entire granite plaque off. I’ve never seen it. It may be brass, I don’t know. Put a new one on. But I’m convinced that if we had a cost, we could raise that money nationally in a very short time and get it done. But the Interior Department’s very opposed. Even if we raised the money, they would be opposed to it. And then George Bush dropped it. So I don’t know if it’s dead yet or not. SHORT: Have you given up? THOMPSON: I really haven’t given up. But I’ve told – Bob Snap who is our commander. Bob is not a World War II vet. But we don’t have many World War II vets anymore. We’re all in the 80s and 90s. I’m 84 now. And so we’re having to get younger people in there. But I think the only way we can do it is try to get the VFW and the American Legion and some of the others involved. And we were trying to do it just by ourselves. That was the decision that we’d made. I think that was probably a mistake there. SHORT: Have we missed anything? THOMPSON: I don’t think we missed a darn things. I’ve probably been much too wordy in talking to you. SHORT: You’ve been great. One other question. How would Fletcher Thompson like to be remembered? THOMPSON: Well, golly, I don’t know. I think I’d like to be remembered as a person who did what he was supposed to do, went where he was supposed to go, who loved his country and who gets very upset when he sees injustices occurring. And that’s the way I’d like to remembered. SHORT: Well, you’ve had a great career. And I want to thank you on behalf of Young Harris College, the Richard Russell Library and the University of Georgia for being with us. THOMPSON: Thank you very much, Bob. Appreciate it. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL220ROGP-075.xml RBRL220ROGP-075.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP/findingaid http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-075/findingaid
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Fletcher Thompson, April 6, 2009
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL220ROGP-075
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Fletcher Thompson
Bob Short
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
State governments--Officials and employees
World War, 1939-1945
Political campaigns
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
United States--Veterans
Description
An account of the resource
Fletcher Thompson was elected as a Republican to the Georgia General Assembly as a state senator in 1964. In 1966, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served in the two succeeding congresses, but was unsuccessful in a bid for reelection in 1972 and returned to his law practice in Atlanta. Thompson discusses his military service, campaigns for public office, and the Republican Party of Georgia.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-04-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History
Georgia--Politics and government
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
The Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection consists of interviews with politically prominent Georgians conducted by Bob Short from 2006 to 2016. Interviewees include former governors, members of both the U.S. and Georgia Congresses, secretaries of state, lobbyists, journalists, lawyers, activists, and relatives of prominent politicians. Included with these oral histories are a few public programs recorded at Young Harris College in 2006-2007. Most interviews were recorded in the homes and offices of interviewees or in the Bob Short Oral History Studio at the University of Georgia. The conversations cover many topics at the intersection of politics and public life in modern Georgia, with a particular strength in gubernatorial contests, the Civil Rights movement, reapportionment, the development of Atlanta, the rise of the Republican party in Georgia, political journalism, and the interaction between religion and politics.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=9&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here. </a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006-2016
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL220ROGP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-074/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with George T. Smith, February 25, 2009 RBRL220ROGP-074 RBRL220ROGP Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection ROGP 074 Interview with George T. Smith finding aid Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia George T. Smith Bob Short 1:|16(8)|46(12)|56(9)|66(15)|81(6)|98(10)|108(12)|117(9)|125(5)|135(6)|143(17)|153(2)|163(6)|174(5)|183(13)|193(10)|203(1)|213(1)|222(1)|229(1)|239(8)|247(9)|254(6)|261(11)|269(5)|278(10)|290(5)|301(15)|311(8)|319(14)|328(11)|338(9)|346(5)|354(5)|361(14)|370(5)|380(5)|392(5)|404(11)|416(1)|424(2)|442(9)|452(8)|463(7)|482(6)|494(14)|504(16)|516(4)|524(14)|537(2)|548(8)|585(15)|615(12)|625(16)|644(14)|660(7)|675(9)|702(3)|717(6)|738(6)|766(9)|776(6)|793(13)|810(10)|820(10)|837(9)|859(4)|866(3)|880(13)|887(5)|894(13)|905(2)|920(13)|945(17)|964(5)|981(4)|998(14)|1014(11)|1026(15)|1045(2)|1059(1)|1083(10)|1103(5)|1117(10)|1129(12)|1140(1)|1150(1)|1162(4)|1172(2)|1195(9)|1203(7)|1214(10)|1222(7)|1233(4)|1246(5)|1256(9)|1266(17)|1284(12)|1294(5)|1303(2)|1318(5)|1330(7)|1345(4) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_mehk0xf9& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_g0df2ocf" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder=" ; 0" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 47 Early life / Significance of name You know, before we get too far, let's explain George T. and George L.... Smith talks about his early life in Mitchell County, Georgia, growing up in a family of farmers, and describes life in the 1920s and 1930s, including the early growth of cotton. agriculture ; boll weevil ; cotton ; Mitchell County, Georgia 17 345 Early schooling / Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College I stayed at that place and went to school at-- Smith talks about dropping out of school after eighth grade, going back to finish high school at age eighteen, and attending first Middle Georgia College in Macon, then transferring to Abraham Baldwin College in Tifton. He talks about being president of the student body and working his way through school. Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College ; education ; Middle Georgia College 17 903 Navy service I got out of that, ABAC, and got in the Navy. Smith recalls signing up for the Navy, attending officer training school, and working on a transport-guard submarine. He talks about visiting Hawai'i on a transport ship expedition, and recalls being bombed in the Atlantic Ocean. bombing ; conscription ; Hawai'i ; Hawaii ; Pacific Theater ; submarine ; U.S. Navy ; World War II 17 1962 Law school So I came back home and went to the University of Georgia. Smith talks about attending law school at the University of Georgia after World War II and working with a law practice in his hometown of Cairo, Georgia. Cairo, Georgia ; Grady County ; law school ; University of Georgia ; World War II 17 2320 Entry into politics / Committee appointments Grady County had a terrible record for representatives getting into politics. Smith recalls how he decided to enter into politics at the behest for better representation from locals constituents. He mentions the committee appointments he received as a freshman senator. Appropriations Committee ; Judicial Committee ; University of Georgia Committee 17 2522 Supporting Carl Sanders / Becoming Speaker of the House Carl Sander ran then. Smith talks about deciding to support Carl Sanders in his race for governor, the effect that the abolition of the county unit system had on elections outcomes, and becoming Speaker of the House after Sander's election. Carl Sanders ; county unit system ; governor ; Marvin Griffin ; Speaker of the House 17 3290 Race for Court of Appeals / Detail about Lieut. Governor's role Smith talks about his decision to run for the Court of Appeals. He highlights his distinction of being the only person to be elected to three high-ranking political positions: Speaker of the House, Lieutenant Governor, and Court of Appeals judge. He also talks about working as Lester Maddox's Lieutenant Governor, as well as the story behind the letter " ; T" ; in his name. Lester Maddox ; lieutenant governor 17 3775 Court of Appeals / Supreme Court So in 1976, you ran for the Court of Appeals. Smith talks about his race for the Court of Appeals, the support of Judge Charlie Pannell, and the major influence the " ; good ol' boys" ; network had on selecting judges. Smith also talks about the way he approached his role on the Georgia Supreme Court and his frequent dissenting opinions. Charlie Pannell ; dissenting opinion ; Georgia Court of Appeals ; Georgia Supreme Court good 'ole boy 17 4366 Death penalty / Memorable Cases Let me ask you this question about evidence: DNA. Smith comments on the still limited implementation of DNA evidence during his time on the Supreme Court in the 1980s. He also reflects on memorable cases, including the Atlanta Child Murders case and a case regarding marital rape. Atlanta Child Murders case ; death penatly ; DNA evidence ; marital rape case ; oral arguments 17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_murders_of_1979%E2%80%9381 Atlanta Child Murders case, Wikipedia 4768 Looking back Well, you certainly had an outstanding career. Smith reflects on his career accomplishments and disappointments. He discusses why he did not run for governor in 1966. career ; legacy 17 4945 Lieutenant governor campaign strategy In 1966, when I was running for Lieutenant Governor... Smith describes the strategy he used to win a victory in the Lieutenant Governor's race against incumbent Peter Zach Geer. lieutenant governor race ; Marvin Griffin ; Peter Zach Geer 17 5368 Controversy over Julian Bond's House Seat You were Speaker of the House, Judge Smith, during the period when Julian Bond was denied his seat. Smith recalls how Representative Julian Bond was denied his seat in the House in response to Bond's speaking out again the Vietnam War draft. Murphy recalls how, as Speaker of the House during the incident, he implemented preventative measures to manage the tension and arranged for a judiciary hearing. Civil Rights Movement ; Georgia House of Representatives ; Julian Bond 17 oral history BOB SHORT: I’m Bob Short and this is “Reflections on Georgia Politics,” sponsored by Young Harris College, the Richard B. Russell Library and the University of Georgia. Our guest is George T. Smith, the only Georgian in modern political history to be elected Speaker of the House, Lieutenant Governor, Judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals and a Supreme Court Justice. What shall I call you: Mr. Speaker, Governor, or Judge Smith? GEORGE SMITH: George T. SHORT: George T. You know, before we get too far, let’s explain George T. and George L. You probably would not have used your middle initial, would you, if there hadn’t been a George L.? SMITH: No, no. SHORT: And both of you were Speakers. SMITH: Yeah. He was Speaker and I was Speaker, and he was Speaker and I was Lieutenant Governor, and they never got us straight. The news media never did get us straight. SHORT: Well ... SMITH: It helped us because whenever they printed something in there bad about me, I told them that was George L. they was talking about. (laughter) And whenever they started on George L., he said that was George T. you’re talking about. (laughter) SHORT: Well, it all began for you in Mitchell County. SMITH: Yep. SHORT: Do you... SMITH: No, no, no Cobb – Cobb? Grady County. SHORT: Grady? SMITH: I was born – oh, yeah, I was born and raised in Mitchell, you’re right. SHORT: Mitchell County. You were born there and what was it like growing up back then in Mitchell County? SMITH: Well, I was born October 15, 1916. Of course, I was about 6 years old before I remember anything because I started school when I was 6 years old. We were all farmers, no automobiles, no trucks, all wagons, buggies and riding mules and horses. I don’t remember an automobile. There were just scattered automobiles. I don’t remember automobiles until 1924. I was 8 years old. There were scattered automobiles, but I didn’t get to go to town, so I didn’t see any of them. I was born at my grandmother’s house. My mother was the baby girl, and I was born in the community of Greenwood – I mean, Hopeful. I was born in Hopeful at my grandmother’s home and came back to the old log cabin house that my grandfather built when he came back from the War between the States. By the way, he went to the War between the States. He was at the first Battle of Manassas and he was at Appomattox. He went through the entire war and didn’t get a crippling injury. It’s amazing. I followed him several years later and I was just glad I got through without a crippling injury. But I was born and raised there, and we went back to that small – little old small farm – 125 acres. And I lived there for a couple of years and then daddy moved to Flint to be an overseer. Then he came back home to the home farm, and he came back because cotton was just coming in big and was making so much money he decided he’d come back home and start back farming again with cotton because it was so – it made so much money than what he was. He came back in 1920 or ‘21 ; I don’t remember which year. But it was the first year that the boll weevil invaded the South. He had 40 acres of cotton and made one bale. Lost all of it to boll weevils. Well, he tried again the next year and made another bale of 40 acres and, ultimately, lost his place as a result of because the money he borrowed to farm on those two years, he paid interest on it until he lost his place in 1935. The interest was the only thing in the world that’s higher than it is now. Interest was 8 percent. And he lost his place because he couldn’t pay 8 percent interest on $3,000. SHORT: Hmm. SMITH: Listen. You don’t know what a hard time is if you didn’t go through the 1929 to 19 – ‘til the war started. You don' ; t know a thing about it. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: Hogs, 2½ cents a pound. Cotton, 3 to 5 cents a pound. Peanuts, $20 to $22 a ton. Corn was about, I think it was 24 cents a bushel. And you don’t know what hard times were. The difference is this. We never had known any better, so we didn’t know any better. That’s exactly the difference. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: What it is now? [Indiscernible] we’d have a revolution now if things were as cheap as they were back then. I went to – I didn’t go to town but two times a year. That was when the bought the first load of guano in the spring and the first bale of cotton in the fall. Daddy gave me a nickel every time I went, and a nickel bought more than you might think. It’s just usually change now, but back then you could buy something for a nickel. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: I stayed at that place and went to school at – I started school when I was 6 years old. Walked three miles each way every day, and I went to Pine Cliff. The reason I went to Pine Cliff, because the young lady that was teaching at Pine Cliff, her name was Ella McCoy and she was from Tennessee. She had a record of being a very fine teacher. And she was ; she was absolutely a gem of a teacher. Daddy had something about not going to start school until you’re 6 years old. Well, I was 6 years old in October, but I didn’t start school until January 1st. Well, when I started January 1st, Ms. Ella had four classes. And it was a two-room – it was a one-room schoolhouse split in two, so we had two rooms – and the other teacher had from 5, 6 and 7. Ms. Ella, Ms. McCoy, had the first four. So I had seven months of school. My class was the last one in the day, 4:00 in the afternoon. School opened at 8, by the way. I walked three miles. You imagine what time I left home walking three miles in December to school every day? Whenever she started with me, she took me the last class at 4:00. And she took me in her lap. So she taught me the first half of my school time sitting in her lap. So I passed the 1st grade the first year. Went there until I finished the 4th grade and went through the 5th and, when I got through the 5th, the teacher – the other teacher – 5th grade (by the way, she married a cousin of my daddy), she was horrible. So he switched me to Greenwood. It was about the same distance I walked to Greenwood. Ms. Helen – I can’t think of her last name – Helen, anyway, she taught me down there. She was a good teacher but she couldn’t touch Ms. Ella McCoy. She was one of the best I ever had. I went there one year, and then they put on a bus route to Hopeful. I lived about three, four – about five miles – from Hopeful, so they put a bus route on and I started riding the bus. That was a new adventure. I went to school until Christmas of 7th grade and daddy took me out and put me to work at Christmas of the 8th grade. I finished the 7th grade, had all A’s. Went to Christmas in 8th grade and had all D’s. So my father said, “Son, are you tired of going to school?” I said, “Yes, I am.” He said, “Well, all right then.” Said, “Monday morning,” said, “you hitch up Rowdy and Roddy and start breaking that land back yonder next to the Pollocks.” Well, it took me about two weeks to really realize what I had done. I’d made a terrible error. Five years later, I started back in the 8th grade at 18 years old. I had learned to appreciate it. Whenever I first got to be Speaker of the House and I’d be talking to school people that particularly wanted to make a point, they’d say, “This is the young man who went to school and dropped out of school, and he realized that education was so good he went back in school to get an education.” I always corrected, “That wasn’t the reason. You plow a mule in south Georgia five years, and dog gone if you won’t do anything to get back in a classroom or wherever it takes.” (laughter) So I started school at Hopeful at Christmas when I was 18 years old. I finished school at Hopeful when I was 21. Went to Middle Georgia when I was 22 for one quarter. And going to Middle Georgia was a misguided place. Middle Georgia was a junior college society school. I was out of my class literally and figuratively, so at Christmas I went and switched to Abraham Baldwin. The main reason I switched to Abraham Baldwin, I’d run out of money and didn’t take but one year. Tuition was only 69 dollars and a half. You had to buy your books, but tuition, food and board were only 69 dollars and a half. So I went to ABAC, as we called it, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton. It’s strictly a rural school. Most of the folks there were working their way through, and I went there because I could work my way through. I know the last year, I didn’t spend but $6. I worked my way totally through the last year because during the summer between my first and last year of college, I worked in tobacco there and they paid me to work in tobacco in the summertime. And then I did the rest of it after that. One reason I got to work so like that, I was elected President of the student body at ABAC. The way I did that, I guess that’s the first time. Well, I was elected President of my class at high school. But I reckon the reason I did that was because I wanted to keep working because that was the only way I could get through, and I tried to figure out the best way I could to get elected President of the student body. Didn’t tell anybody. And I came up with the idea that if I would learn everybody’s name on that campus, one way or the other, it would help. I could call everybody by one name – it may have been a nickname or something – whenever I ran for it and I won, and there’s no doubt in my mind that’s what did it. I was able to recognize those people on the street some. So I, the last year, I spent $6. I worked the tobacco and I got 10 cents an hour. That’s unbelievable, 10 cents an hour. And when the tobacco season got through – got up to the point you would pull the tobacco and cure it – I came to find out that, see, when we was curing tobacco at home, you had to use logs and a furnace. When I got over there, they had a thermostatic-controlled gas system for the tobacco farm. That was heaven, you know. So I just moved me a cot back there, set the thermostat whatever I wanted, get up every 30 minutes until I just worked it all the way around. I charged 23 hours a day. And the second school year when it started the first week, I got a message from the President he would like to see me in his office. I couldn’t imagine what in the world the President wanted to see me about. That’s Mr. – President – King. He was about 6’2” or 3”, bald-headed as a cue ball. They called him Cue Ball, but not to his face. I walked in and sat down. He said, “Thornewell.” See, that was the T in George T. That’s Thornewell, and I’ve never been called that after I got out of ABAC. I said, “Yes, sir?” He said, “I was just perusing your record for work this summer, and I noticed that you charged 23 hours a day. Would you care to explain that?” I said, “Yes, sir.” And I explained it to him. I said, “I wasn’t getting but 10 cents an hour and I needed all that I could get and I figured out where I could use that thermostat and I did it for 23 hours a day. I took an hour out to go to lunch and supper. And I was just right out maybe a quarter of a mile where you went to eat. He folded up the paper and he says, “Well, that was a novel idea, wasn’t it?” And shut the paper. But they made a rule right then you couldn’t work more than 12 hours a day and get paid for it. (laughter) But that’s the way I did it. I got out of that, ABAC, and got in the Navy. When I got in the Navy, I went to – I realized that I was going to get in the Army or the Navy or something because they were saying they were going to start conscripting everybody October 15th that year. So I decided I would get in the Navy because my granddaddy had told my daddy about all the times he had to sleep when it was cold and he’d wake up in the morning with icicles 12 and 15 inches long up around him where he’d slept all night. Clothes would freeze on him in 50 yards after they waded a creek or something during the war. So I got me a place. I said, “I may not have it but one night, but at least I’ll sleep dry ‘til I get wet for good.” (laughter) So I went up there and took the exam at Albany. When I got through, the guy that was giving the exam was a Navy – he had a lot of stripes on him ; I don’t remember what he was – and he said, “Why didn’t you,” he said, “I see you got a two-year college degree.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, why didn’t you make application to go to the V7 program?” I said, “I don’t know what the V7 program is.” He said, “Well, if you get in the Navy and you’ve got two years college, you can make application for an officer in the Navy. You can get in the V7 program. They send you to the state pier in New York and you get on a ship. You go to sea for a month. And after you get back, if they recommend you, you can go to Northwestern University and get a midship – an officer’s – degree in the Navy.” I said, “Give it to me then.” So I got that and went up in Macon and passed it. I went up to Macon and got the final and passed it, and, oh, a funny thing happened now. I tried to get in the Air Force before I did any of the rest of it. I came to Atlanta, stayed up here two days, one of ‘em all day and all night in the bed. I passed everything but the blood pressure. My pressure was around 110 or 15 to about 170 or 80, and here I was 21 years old. And that was unbelievable. So they wouldn’t take me. They tried to because, as somebody said, “They take anybody in the Army and the Air Corps that day if you could look through one ear and see out the other one,” because they were looking for ‘em. That was the best thing that ever happened to me though because, if I’d have got on a – the airplanes back in that day at that time was just a bunch of - - ramshackle things. So I went to New York. Never been north of Albany but one time. And I got to New York and I was scared to death. You can imagine a farm boy from south Georgia never been any further north than Albany but one time, in New York City. So I got there and I was, you know about getting your tonsils blistered by the sun? I was typical because I fit that. But I got up, got on this ship – the old USS Quincy ; it was sunk at the Battle of Savo Island. I spent the month on it and they took me into the Navy. I made it. A story needs telling that happened there. When I took the – see, I had only two years. I didn’t have a single year of advanced math. Our little country school in Hopeful - wasn' ; t but four hundred people there, not a – I had good grades in it, had all A’s in everything I did, but I didn’t have anything past half a term of geometry. So I went up there and the crowd I – my floor, I was in the 7th Division we called it. And it was tough. Navigation was what was really tough. I memorized navigation. I didn’t have a background or basis of arithmetic, math, to really ever grasp it, so I memorized it. So we had our final test and they gave us what they call a day’s work. You start at 3:00 in the morning and go all the way at 24 hours. Well, I set out on my day’s work and, by the time I got to noon the next day, I was off the paper. They just gave you the paper it was supposed to fit on. Well, by the time I got through traveling ‘til noon of that day, from 3 to noon, I was off the paper. Well, to make a long story short, I got off the paper every time I returned. I said, “Well, nothing like going back to the farm.” So I – it wasn’t quite that much. I was devastated. Got on the – I got on the elevator, went down the elevator stuffed with the members of the class, and it was like a tomb. I noticed, I said, “My God, this is like a tomb! Everybody’s just hang-dog look.” So one fellow finally got courage enough to say something and he said, “How many of you didn’t get past noon?” None of us did. They had given us an advanced problem in navigation that they had not taught us about. We all flunked it! And so they just gave everybody 2.5 and let us go. Boy, I tell ya. Nice to have ignorant folks with you sometimes. I went on and got in the Navy and got on the USS Quincy for a month. Got back. Then I was put on a naval submarine supply ship. We supplied the subs. We had a lot of them, but they weren' ; t any good. And I stayed on that from October – well, from June when I got out of school – to February. Then they transferred me to Norfolk to go to midshipman school, to go to naval – I was an officer in charge of a naval gun crew on a supply ship. All of these supply ships, we were taking stuff to Murmansk, and they were sinking off the coast out there just like – well, they were just sinking ‘em day and night. So I went there and we went to Battle Creek, Virginia. Went through training there for – we had the crowd with me that I was going to use, my group. There were 11 of us – 9 of us, 10 with me. And we got on the SS Yaquima[ph]. It was a civilian ship, merchant mariner, but it was run by merchant mariners. The only part that we did, we took care of the guns and we shot the guns and handled the guns if we were attacked. And it’s too long to go into detail there, but I learned – I got – well, I learned what labor unions were. Whew! don’t get me on that one because I tell you it was – anyway. So I made a – I was in the first American convoy that went to Murmansk. And we had quite a time. We were shot at, torpedoed at, bombed, and they sunk only one ship going over ; but coming back – and the reason only one going over is because we got into a fogbank three days out of Murmansk and the fog didn’t lift. And the Germans never could get to us because the airplanes, they couldn’t find us. Went on into Murmansk. I was bombed three times when they was in Kola River, and they finally sunk my ship. And, but it was in the river so when it settled on the mud flats, they went in there and pumped it out and put it in drydock and prepared it – repaired it – because we were sunk by a bomb that did not explode. And the reason it didn’t explode, I was on an old 1919 liberty ship which had what they call a fidley in it. That was when they used coal – nothing but coal – and there was a place about that wide all the way from the fore plates in the bottom of the ship out the top right in front of the boilers. And that was for a place to let the heat out from the use of coal. It’d get so hot down there and that’s the only way it could come out. And that bomb, as it was coming down like bombs would come down, they’d be straight up and moving like that. That bomb was moving like that and it hit the side of my ship. It never did get to the water ; it hit the side of it and it knocked a hole right out you could drive a freight train through and went all the way out the bottom before it exploded. And, well, it hit right where that fidley was and, going sideways like that, it didn’t – the point didn’t – hit anything. You had to hit the point of it to set the bomb off. It hit nothing, so it went all the way through and went out the bottom of the ship. That’s when it contacted and when it contacted, it blew up and blew a hole in the bottom of the ship. So we had holes all over the place. And they pumped it out and we came back to America. I was standing so near that door to where the bomb went through the side of the ship, all I had to do was look over the side and there it was. We were bombed a couple of more times before we left. Now we were in drydock three times from bombs. One time we was sunk. And when we finally got back, on the way back, at 9:00 on the 5th of July, 1942, we lost seven ships in 15 minutes. They always told us that we’d run into a German wolf pack, and that’s what I believed until I got out of the Navy and years later read a book. “Wait a minute. We didn’t run into a German wolf pack. The stupid pilot had led us into our own minefield.” SHORT: Hmm-hmm. SMITH: We sunk seven of our own ships. And I’ll never forget that one because the crowd that I went through midshipman’s school – I mean armed guard school – with, the two officers that I knew, we were in a line of 18 ships, nine on each side, two, two, two. One of my friends was number one, I was number two, and the other was number three. His ship was sunk. I missed the mines. I don’t know why, but I did. Mine was not sunk, but the one right behind me was sunk and the one on my left, the bow was blown off. So I was sitting there just – providence picked me out to live another day, and I don’t ever know what happened to those boys. I got back to America and my ship, by being bombed and drydocked for so long, I missed a lot of the – I missed all the – convoys that went to places where they were [indiscernible]. The one I really missed was North Africa. Went to North Africa and Sicily and Italy. I didn’t make that trip, thank the Lord for that because that crowd, they were – they were gone a year and had a terrible time. And I just, there wasn’t a real convoy for me to pick up on, but they had an Army transport that was going to go to Hawaii so they put me on the Army transport to Hawaii. And we went all the way down to the Panama Canal, came up to San Diego and then went on out to Hawaii. I stayed on that ship for seven months going inner island. I’ve been to every one of the islands of Hawaii and didn’t have to pay a thing but seven months of my time. And it was quite a place. We never did have any problems out there. We' ; d get to talking about it and all like that. I saw what the Japanese did to us because they never had cleaned it up much, just to get in and out. And I stayed there for a while. I spent two years in the Navy, and then I was put on Naval Land Force Equipment Depot in Albany, Alabama – Albany, California. And that’s where all the equipment that was an invasion for forces in the South went through us. We were the – we dispensed it. They ordered it from us and picked it up from us in San Francisco Bay on the Albany side. And I stayed there for two years. When I went there, they took me off the ship that I was on and transferred me to the Port Director’s Officer with the directions that – and with the directions that whenever the ship I’d just got off of was decommissioned from a commercial ship to a Navy ship, that I was go back on it as Gunnery Officer. Two years later, I went back on it. What happened was they lost me. They lost my orders somewhere or another. I had three sets of orders sent to me. They sent them all back, “Lost.” And I reckon we’d have never – they would never have found me, but one of the fellows, the ship he had been sent to the same time mine was sent somewhere was sunk. All – everybody – was lost, so his people were notified that he was unaccounted for, the ship and everything ; he was sunk. And he went up there and said, “I ain’t dead. I’m very much alive.” Well, they found out that all our orders was in the corner of a warehouse over in San Francisco. Well, they soon got the orders to send us to the South Pacific, but before we could get to the South Pacific, they dropped the atom bomb, you know, and it saved us as far as I’m concerned because I had orders to the USS Harrison, which was a troop ship and I was supposed to report to some of the islands right there close to Hawaii – I mean, Japan. I don’t know where it was. But I would’ve been – we were supposed to invade them on November 11, 1945, but it never did come around because they surrendered before that was over with. So I came back home and went to the University of Georgia. I was 29 years old. Went to law school. They let me in because they let a lot of them in. There was 125 or 126 in my class. We didn’t have enough seats for all of them. If you didn’t there early, you sat in the window. And we went through law school like that and went through. We took a full course in law school and eight quarters. That’s when you’d go on a quarter. And if you’d go straight through eight quarters, you’d get a law degree. I had only two hours – I mean, two years – I had 125 units but wouldn’t but 84 of them count toward law school and it took 92. So I was eight short. And the registrar up there at the University, he pulled a lot of strings and he gave me eight points for being on a ship and shooting the [indiscernible] out and gave me trigonometry, I believe it was. I never – I had a minor in trigonometry. I mean, I had my minor in mathematics and never did go but four years down at--only one year at Hopeful High School. (laughter) That’s how hard they wanted them. I went through law school there and then went to Cairo, Georgia. Mr. Sam Caine had a son that was killed, and I went into law practice with him. And I went into practice on January 1, 1948, making $60 a week, and I bought a house and a new car on $60 a week. I’d like to see you do that now. Can’t go – you can’t go to a football game for $60, much less. But, anyway, I stayed there and practiced law with Mr. Caine in Cairo in 1948 – January 1, ‘48. But while I was there, I was elected City Attorney, County Attorney, Solicitor of the State Court, represented the EMC and also the School Board attorney. That was a lot of work and mighty poor pay. I got $50 a month for being County Attorney. Can you believe that? And $50 a month to be City Attorney. And when I went there, Mr. Caine took me because he said I wasn’t interested in politics – and I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. I just wanted to get out and get me a job and I wanted one in south Georgia. I asked for south Georgia. I said, “I want a rural county in south Georgia.” They said, “That’ll be no problem. Everybody wants to go to Atlanta.” One story I’m going to tell you, it pays you to do right because you don’t know who’s looking at you. When I got back and was finished up at law school at the University, I went over to – all of us took a day out and went over to Atlanta looking for jobs, so I thought, “Well, I’m gonna start off with Hartford Insurance Company for a job for an appraisal, automobiles.” And I went up to their place and they took me, and I went in and I sat down in the room to be interviewed by the fellow. And the room was about a big square from me to that door there ; that was about as a big as the office was in. And you could sit down and it had wood up to just about your eyes ; the rest of it was glass. And I sat down and he sat down, and I noticed he kept looking. He kept looking and he didn’t do anything, and I was wondering when he was gonna start something. And in a minute he got up and said, “Excuse me.” And I watched him and he went about as far as from here to that wall over yonder to another cubicle and went in and stood up. He never did sit down. And they talked some little bit and when he came back, he sat down and he said, “Well, you’ve got the job.” I said, “Got the job? You didn’t even interview me.” He said, “You see that fellow I went to talk to?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “He tells me that you were a security officer at the Naval Land Force Equipment Depot. That’s the same as Chief of Police over 3,500 people. And a bunch of wild sailors, that wasn’t easy. And he was in the fire Department and he said the Fire Department was under your jurisdiction.” I said, “That’s right.” And he told me that he had worked under me and knew me well and to hire me. You don' ; t know who' ; s looking at you. Now we had switched places. I was his boss over there. He was the Vice President of an insurance company there and he was my boss there. I went to practice law. But it really pays ; you don’t know who’s looking at you, and that old saying about be nice on the way up because you don’t know who you’ll meet coming back down? SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: That’s really a test of it. So we got to – we had – Cairo, Grady County, had a terrible record for representatives getting in politics, and they had a fellow that got in politics and he weighed about 300 pounds, was elected, and he went two terms, four years, as a House Representative. And the people that know politics and all, they kept sending word back to the people in Cairo says, “Y’all better get you somebody else up here.” Said, “This man sleeps all the time. He don’t know what’s going on.” Said, “Get somebody up here.” So they came to see me. This is the closest I ever got to being conscripted to go somewhere. And they came to me and I said, “I can’t get in politics.” They said, “Why?” I said, “I promised Mr. Sam Caine I’d stay out. And I’m just – he gave me a job and I’m gonna live up to it.” So what they did then, they got a committee of three and went to see Mr. Caine, not – I knew nothing about it. And he said, “Yeah, okay. He can go. It’s all right with me for him to go.” So I went to see him before I ever gave them the answer and he said, “No, it’s all right for you to go. It might do you good.” So that’s how I got in politics. I ran. The editor of the paper ran and then the incumbent ran and I ran. And I got more votes than both of them put together. So, I was in politics. Well, that was 1958. My first term in legislature was 1959. Vandiver had just been elected. And Frank Twitty[ph] was Floor Leader and George L. Smith was the Speaker and Vandiver was the Governor. And I was born and raised in Mitchell County. Frank Twitty had known my folks and we had known him. They voted for him and supported him always. And you' ; re talking about some committee appointments? I got committee appointments that people lived and died in that place and never did get. I was on the Judicial – Judicial Committee – University of Georgia Committee and the Governor’s Committee and the State of the Republic Committee, those three. You could stay there a lifetime and never get a one of them. Well, I stayed that way for two years and, at the end of two years, Frank came to me and said, “You want to be on the Appropriations Committee?” I said, “Yeah.” So he took me off the University Committee and put me on the Appropriations Committee. Can you imagine being there two years and on the Appropriations Committee? SHORT: Uh-uh. SMITH: It ain’t what you know ; it’s who you know, friend. Don’t ever forget that. SHORT: Uh-uh. SMITH: And I went over there and they made me Vice Chairman of it and, in one year, I was Chairman of the Appropriations Committee for the House of Representative in three years. That’s what a break is. Carl Sanders ran then and, when Carl ran, he started off as Lieutenant Governor and I told him I’d help him. And then when he moved over against Marvin Griffin, see, Marvin’s from Bainbridge and I was from Cairo ; they’re 24 miles apart. And I was supporting Carl because he and I were classmates. Well, I thought he could do it too. And people got so mad at me in my county, they’d walk across the street to keep from speaking to me. They just didn’t like me because I wouldn’t support old Marv. Well, Carl won. Whenever Carl won, everybody got in good humor with me – quick. (laughter) I' ; d sworn I found out how fast people can quit hating you. And, by the way, Marvin didn’t beat Carl but 264 votes in my county. I really went to bat for him. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: But then Carl was elected in ‘62, and then I had – I would leave Cairo Thursday night after work, drive to Atlanta, and work with Carl until Monday night. I’d go over and stayed over the weekend and do speeches for him and telephone, and I really worked with him. And so whenever he won, I know the afternoon they finally said that he won – it was on Wednesday afternoon – we were all sitting around there in the big lobby of the headquarters, and, all at once, I really realized that I had noticed that everybody was gone and I was left alone. About that time, Bill Trotter – you remember Bill Trotter? SHORT: Oh, yeah. SMITH: Little short fellow? SHORT: Yeah. SMITH: Bowl-legged as a – he went with a – he was a AAA ball at one time. Good player. He said, “The Governor wants to see you.” And so I walked in the room where they were and everybody was in there. They had silently gone in there, and Carl said, “Sit down, George T.” – or George. I still wasn’t George T. So I sat down and he said, “How’d you like to be Speaker?” I said, “I’d like it.” (laughter) It didn’t take me no two days to figure it out, you know, to “I ain’t worthy!” To heck with that kind of crap! (laughter) You don’t get anywhere saying, “I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy, but I’ll take it.” I said, “Yeah, I will do.” He said, “All right. Go get on the telephone.” And he had – what they had come to, they’d all sat down there and talked it out – they said that I was the only man they thought that could become qualified to be Speaker. They didn’t think I qualified to be it, but wasn’t anybody qualified they’d trust because they’d all supported Marvin Griffin. So that’s how I got to be Speaker. (laughter) And it was a – we had a rough time the first year or two. Boy, I tell you what. It was rugged. But we made it. And then I liked it so well, I decided I wanted to be Lieutenant Governor. I didn’t want to stay in politics all my life, but I wasn’t ready to get out. And so I ran against... SHORT: Peter Zack Geer. SMITH: ...Peter Zack Geer. Peter Zack was – no, I won’t what I said. Peter Zack was smart as a whip, a great speaker, lazy as a foxhound in June. And just he never did take it serious. He never did take me serious at all. The first time anybody ever asked him about it was on the street walking, and they asked him, said, “What do you think about the Speaker running for Lieutenant Governor against you?” He said, “Well, I never did go bear hunting with a rabbit gun.” And that just made me mad. It just burned me up, you know it? I worked harder. It was easy to get up at 3:00 in the morning, but Zack didn’t work any. He didn’t work. He just – he just figured that he had the Talmadges behind him and the Vandivers behind him and Campbell behind him, and he knew it and he figured it would be all right. I can’t remember the challenger, the County Commissioner from Clarke County, but he ran. There was three of us. And I – he was an odd man out. That was a man – also fixing to tell something I’ve never told before except on something like this. SHORT: Randall Bedgood. SMITH: Randall Bedgood, you’re right. So I – when I was Speaker of the House, I said, “I ain’t gonna stay here always. I might want to be Lieutenant Governor and I can’t beat Peter Zack Geer Lieutenant Governor with a plurality.” So the second year I was Speaker of the House, I very quietly got a bill passed that you could not be elected to an office unless you had 50 percent plus one. Well, that paid off. (laughter) Because first when I ran, the three of us, Zack was #1 with 49.2 percent of the votes. I had 44 percent. Well, we had a runoff and, in the runoff, I beat Zack 139,000 votes. That’s the most amazing thing I ever – Zack, I mean, Peter Zack just would not – he wouldn’t – he wouldn’t work. He just simply wouldn’t work. He always was talking ugly about me, but he never would work. One of the biggest mistakes he made was they asked him – back then, if you was a Democrat (and the Republicans were making noises), if you was a Democrat, you did, in 1966, you had to sign a pledge to support the nominees, the Democratic nominees. But, you didn’t have to swear to it. So he and I, in a speech I gave to the Junior Chamber of Commerce over at DeKalb County one night, and they asked him if he was going to support the nominees. He said, “I don’t know.” They said, “Why don’t you know?” He said, “I don’t know who’s gonna be elected.” They said, “Well, you signed an agreement, didn’t you?” He said, “Yeah, but I wasn’t under oath.” And I was next up. He got off and left. He wasn’t there to defend himself, and that was a stupid thing to do. That’s always – if he was the first one to speak, he’d go ; he wouldn’t stay around. I always stayed around. They talk about you if you left, you know. You wanted – you needed – to be there to defend yourself. So he left, and I knew they was gonna ask me about that question as sure as I knew my name. And I went to racking my brain on what kind of answer I’d give. And, as I was walking up to the platform to answer it – to hazard, to say what I’d say to that question – it came to me, the answer did. So they asked me about that. They said, “What do you think about that?” I said, “Well, ...” And they said, “Now, the Lieutenant Governor said he wasn’t under oath, so...” I wasn’t there when he made his talk, so they highlighted and said he wasn’t under oath. “What have you got to say?” I said, “I’ve got only one thing to say. I don’t believe the people of the state of Georgia would elect a man Lieutenant Governor that’s got to be under oath before you can believe what he says.” It killed him. You just – I just had all those papers all over the state with little, short editorials just reporting what he said and what I said. It just killed him. He was careless that way. He never planned anything. The first thing up was out. And that, plus another very involved thing complying--dealing with the House and the Senate was the liquor because he lost every newspaper in the state except Albany Herald when he put that boner about the liquor deal. They – he had promised them he would not put a bill on the floor without letting them – giving them – a chance to appear before the committee. He not only put it out of committee, he passed it, and they never did know about it until they read it in the paper. He lost them all because they just – he thought he was in so deep. SHORT: He was a County Unit politician. SMITH: That’s right. That’s right. SHORT: Let’s talk about that for a minute. SMITH: All right. SHORT: Going back to the Sanders-Griffin election... SMITH: Uh-huh? SHORT: ...where everybody thought Marvin Griffin would win. SMITH: He would if it hadn’t have been for the County Unit System being thrown out. SHORT: So they threw out the County Unit System... SMITH: Yeah. SHORT: ...and that just completely changed politics... SMITH: That’s right. SHORT: ...in Georgia forever. SMITH: And forever and Marvin Griffin didn’t know what to do with it. There wasn’t nothing he could do with it. Now that was another reason I was so positive in helping Carl Sanders. Don’t tell me how I knew this, but I knew this. We knew that the court was going to throw out the County Unit System before the election. SHORT: Uh-huh SMITH: But time enough to know that we could run in that direction, so we just – Carl just hit the high spots. He worked on the cities... SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: ...and didn’t fool with little rural areas much. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And that’s what happened. It was a plurality – I mean, it was a majority vote thing rather than a County Unit System, and Carl won. SHORT: And he would’ve won either way. SMITH: Yeah, he would have won either way, as it turned out, but we didn’t know that then. SHORT: Right, true. SMITH: And it’s never been – but I changed, got it changed – way back there... SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: ...so I could win. I didn’t know it. I didn’t. And I needed it. I’d have lost ; I’d have lost if it hadn’t been for that. Zack, like I said, must have been sick when he lost it by 8/10 of a percent. Well, I got out of the legislature and was elected Lieutenant Governor. I got beat for Lieutenant Governor and I then started practicing law up here. And I was going back to Cairo. I had interest in a bank down there and all that, and my secretary at that time said, “I thought you wanted to get on the Appellate Courts.” I said, “I do.” And she said – there she sits right over there ; she’s been working with me 42 years – she said, “Well, how?” She said, “You go back down to Cairo. That’s almost out of the state.” Said, “You get down there and you gonna never get your name in the front where you can get on the Courts. Now if you leave up here, you can just forget about that.” Well, I thought about it a little bit and I got – I agreed with her. So I went to work with – what was that guy’s name? It’ll come to me in a minute. SHORT: Here in Marietta? SMITH: Yeah, in Marietta. He was a very prominent lawyer in Marietta. SPEAKER: Harold Willingham. SHORT: Yeah. SMITH: Harold Willingham. SHORT: Yeah. SMITH: Harold Willingham. And while I was with Harold Willingham, I also ran for Governor and lost that. And then I ran for Court of Appeals in 1976. Now I’m the only person that has ever been elected to all three positions with opposition. Now there’s only two or three other people – and I don’t know who they were ; one of them was Brown – and they all served in all three of them in the 1800s. Nobody’s ever served since the 1800s in all three of them in any capacity. SHORT: You were elected to all of them? SMITH: I was elected with opposition. SHORT: Right. SMITH: And I told them I was such a poor politician – such a poor politician – I couldn’t get anybody to appoint me to anything, but I was elected to all three of them. And so when I served out as-- the Supreme Court, I was on there 11 years and the Court of Appeals four years and four months. And I got out of that and then I started to see if they’d – I came back to Cairo – came back to Marietta practicing law. And I' ; ve enjoyed practicing law up here, and I tried my best ; I had two governors tell me a tale. (I’ll put it nice.) Two governors told me if I’d get the House and the Senate to pass a bill doing away with the cap on the age that judges could serve, they’d sign it, both of them. SHORT: Didn’t sign it. SMITH: Neither one of them signed it. Never would. Never talked to them. [Gap] SHORT: If you don’t mind, let’s go back to 1966 when you were elected Lieutenant Governor and Lester Maddox was elected Governor. How did you and Governor Maddox get along? SMITH: We got along all right because he didn’t fool with me and I didn’t fool with him. But, see, he called me a liar in public on four different times, and I never did lie to Mr. Maddox. He just – you just couldn’t depend on – you couldn’t tell him anything. I got to where I would not go in his office without I had a witness because he’d deny what he said to you. You couldn’t agree with him ; he wouldn’t make an agreement with you. And when he called, I got tired of being called a liar, so I just never would go in there. [Overlapping conversation] SHORT: So you didn’t have a day-to-day relationship... SMITH: Oh, no. SHORT: ...about issues that affected the state? SMITH: Issues? He didn’t know what an issue was. No, we never--no issues. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: Never were discussed. And that’s when I got – when I got to be Speaker of the House, in fact, before I got to be Speaker – that’s when I got tagged with George T. and George L. George L. was Speaker of the House then under Vandiver... SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: ...but he was Speaker of the House before that too with Talmadge. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And Twitty was – Frank Twitty was – Floor Leader to Talmadge and what’s his name? SHORT: Vandiver. SMITH: Vandiver. And whenever he was the Speaker of the House and I was in there on committees and all, they got to calling me George and him Good George. And, finally, he told me, he said, “I’m tired of being called Bad George.” They called me George and him Bad George. That’s the way he put it. He said, “You' ; re going to get another name.” And so they said, “Well, we’ll call you George L. and him George T.,” and that’s how we got the names George L. and George T. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And we would, sure, we’d both get accused sometimes of what the other one said. We stuck to our guns. If it was about me, I said, “He did it.” If it was about him, he’d say, “He did it.” And you know what? We never did anybody that followed up on it. (laughter) That just shows you how much interested folks are in politics, generally speaking. SHORT: Yeah. SMITH: They never did. SHORT: You know, in some states, they require the lieutenant governor to run on a ticket... SMITH: Yeah. SHORT: ...with the governor. Do you think that’s a good idea? SMITH: Well, for party unity, it is ; but I – you just about have to, Bob, because you couldn’t have everybody running for lieutenant governor. You just have to have a ticket with them. SHORT: Well, you’ve been Speaker and you’ve been Lieutenant Governor. Which did you enjoy the most? SMITH: Speaker. SHORT: Why? Why is that? SMITH: The Speaker had power. The Speaker was the most powerful man in state government next to the Governor and, if you had a weak Governor, he was the most powerful. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: George L. ran the legislative part of it when I was speaker ; and when I was Lieutenant Governor, he was Speaker because all the money bills started in the House, you know, as you know. And by the fact that they all started in the House, he ignored the Governor. He ran that House like he wanted to. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And I joined with him. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: We’d do things – well, he didn’t care, Bob. SHORT: Are you speaking of the Governor? SMITH: Yeah, the Governor didn’t care. The first day of the legislature, that I was Speaker of the House the first term, the last day of the session, the Conference Committees were out trying to figure out the Appropriations Bill and the Governor had had a pork barrel with somebody over in Columbus, Georgia, $200,000. He wanted it appropriated for $200,000 so he could do a little politicking. Well, George L. and I discussed it [coughing] – excuse me – George L. wouldn’t agree to it, and I said, “Oh, he only wants $200,000.” He said, “I ain’t gonna agree to it.” He would not agree to it. At 5:00 on Friday afternoon, everybody’s sitting around waiting for the Conference Committee and that’s all they were stuck on. I told my board, I said, “Don’t. We promised together and we’ve got to stay with it.” By 5:00, I saw that George L. was heck bent ; he wasn’t gonna move. So – and I wasn’t gonna move unless the Governor released me, because I’d promised him I’d do it and I was gonna do it. I went down to his office and I told him, I said, “I’d like to see Governor Maddox.” He says, “He ain’t here.” I said, “Not here?” I said, “Doesn’t he know this is the last day of the session and the Appropriations Committee is still out? Where is he?” “Oh,” he said, “he’s down in Macon, Georgia riding his bicycle backwards for the entertainment of the school children down there.” SHORT: Hmm. SMITH: Shoo, I walked back up and I didn’t even knock. I opened the door. I said, “You know that $200,000 y’all are tied up on?” They said, “Yes.” I said, “Throw it out the door, pass that Appropriations Bill, and let’s go home.” They did it. He never mentioned it. Never mentioned it. He didn’t know. He forgot about it. SHORT: Hmm-hmm-hmm. So in 1976, you ran for the Court of Appeals. SMITH: Yeah. And that was a little deal made there. The Court of Appeals was Charlie Pannell. He was on the Court of Appeals. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And he wanted to run ; he was gonna quit. He tried to get the then present governor to appoint Charlie, Jr., as a State Court judge in Seminole or something up there, and the governor wouldn’t do it. SHORT: That was Busbee. SMITH: Right. He wouldn’t do it. Well, Charlie and I were very close because we both worked in Carl’s headquarters. We got to know each other real well. So he came to me and said, “I tried to get Busbee to appoint my boy, and he won’t do it.” He said, “It’s just a little old state – state court.” And he said, “You want to be Court of Appeals?” I said, “I dang sure do.” He said, “All right. Stand ready. I ain’t gonna tell them I’m not gonna run for the Court of Appeals until Wednesday before deadline on Monday for doing it.” So he called me and says, “I’m gonna do it this morning – this afternoon.” And so the next morning, I already had it arranged. I had my people lined up and all, and I announced for Court of Appeals. And nobody that could beat me would run because several of them tried it and Charlie helped me a little bit. He said, “Now you remember he ran two years ago for Governor.” He said, “He’s got an organization out there.” And said, “The time you get yours put together, he’d be elected because you can’t do it.” And that did keep anybody from, well, being a real threat because of that, so I was elected to the Court of Appeals. And I wasn’t satisfied with the Court of Appeals. I always wanted to be on the Supreme Court, and I wouldn’t – I knew Busbee wouldn' ; t appoint me – but I wanted to clear it to keep him from saying, “Well, if he’d asked,” so I went and asked him. His answer was a slick political answer, a smile behind the hat. He said, “I never make those decisions ‘til I find out the opening’s there.” I thought, I said, “George, don’t tell me that. I’ve been around here and you know that better than that.” SHORT: Hmm. SMITH: And I announced for it. I’ll say this. He didn’t get involved in it. SHORT: Uh-huh. We elect our judges – the people elect our judges ; some are appointed. Do you think that politics and judges’ races mix? SMITH: Oh, yeah. Don’t let anybody kid you. See, Charlie Pannell elected me because he just didn’t resign until it was too late for anybody else to do anything. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: No, there was no money – nobody trying to buy anybody like a famous case going on now – but it was just politics. Friends. Good ‘ol boys. SHORT: Well, you served on the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. SMITH: Yeah. SHORT: Which one did you like the best? SMITH: I liked the Supreme Court better than any elected position I’ve ever had, Speaker of the House or anything else. SHORT: Tell us about being a Supreme Court Justice. SMITH: Well, there’s a lot of responsibility there really because that’s the last, and you need to take that seriously because that’s the last – that’s the last place that a man’s got a chance to get any help, so you ought to be real careful about that. I wrote a lot of dissents – a lot of dissents. I just thought that before any man had the final judgment passed on him, the evidence ought to be unassailed against him. And there was one thing – there were two things – that I did when I got on the Court of Appeals before I ever got on the Supreme Court. When I got on the Court of Appeals, all opinions were written like this. Take in the evidence. Whenever they affirmed – if a man lost a case, they had to affirm it. That’d be civil or criminal. They’d always say, “Taking the evidence as being in favor of – the words to this – in favor of the state as found by the lower court, we find thus,” and then went on and approved the lower court. I didn’t start my opinions that way. I didn’t think it ought to be that way. I just started off from scratch. I thought, by golly, that just because the lower court found the man guilty, that ought not to cause you to run it that way. Why do you have Appellate Court? SHORT: Hmm. SMITH: And I didn’t write them that way. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And I always – there’s another thing I did that nobody else did. The first paragraph, I’d say what the case was about and all like that, and then when I finished that paragraph, I’d add a new paragraph of one sentence that I’d either affirm or deny the other court and then write my opinion. My reason for that, I thought that being – having been – a trial lawyer and on the Court of Appeals for the first time, what the trial lawyer taught me most, I thought I ought to let the judge know in the first paragraph, after I put out the facts, what I had done. So then he could read the whole brief from the court below knowing why I had – how I had – held the case. Otherwise, if you didn’t do that, he had to read the whole case before you could find at the end what it was all about. And that, you see some judges doing that ; not many. They quit both of those things. I’ll tell you another thing that we tried, that we changed in the Supreme Court. The first day I was on the Supreme Court – the first day – they assigned my cases. And there was a case dealing with the county commissioners, and I want to say it was from Augusta, but I’m not sure. And I caught it and I wrote an opinion and reversed it, and the other guys of the court went 6 to 1 against me. Then I said, “Alright now, Mr. Chief Justice, who are you going to assign this case to?” He says, “To you.” I said, “What do you mean, to me?” I said, “I’ve just found against them and you all are for it.” He said, “That’s the rule of this Court. The man that has the case, if he writes an opinion reversing it and the rest of the Court goes against him, then he has to write the opinion affirming it.” I said, “How do you write upstream?” I said, “I can’t write it.” he said, “Well, that’s the rule.” I said, “All right.” We had a Rule 36 and a Rule 59, and the Rule 59 of the Supreme Court was – and I got that rule changed too ; that’s the way I – I was the one that got that rule in – if the evidence and the judges charge there was no error in that, we would affirm the trial court without an opinion. So I just took that case and I said, “The trial court, blah-blah-blah,” like that, “affirmed this opinion by Rule 59.” And then I wrote one of the dog-gonedest decisions you’ve ever seen in your life. That’s the last time that ever happened. They changed that rule immediately. It didn’t make no sense, Bob! How you gonna write a for it and against it all in the same time? SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: It didn’t make no sense. SHORT: Let me ask you this question about evidence: DNA. SMITH: That had not come about when I was – it was just coming into – I never had to deal with an opinion with that. That shows you how – it just wasn’t there. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And I haven’t gone to the trouble to try to learn about it in private practice because I don’t do that much criminal work. SHORT: Uh-huh. It seems, Judge Smith, that modern juries seem to prefer a sentence of life without parole over the death penalty. SMITH: Uh-huh. SHORT: Do you think that that will do away with the death penalty? SMITH: No. Oh, if they keep doing that, oh, sooner or later, they’re gonna quit. SHORT: Uh-huh. The Supreme Court handles quite a few death penalty cases. SMITH: Yes. SHORT: Uh-huh. Another question, modern jurisprudence: What effect has the internet had on appellate courts? Now you can file over the computer and without oral arguments. Is that a good idea? SMITH: Not for me. I like for a lawyer, stand him there and argue the case, and let me look at him and have the opportunity to ask him questions. Sometimes you change your mind ; not often, but sometimes you do. I had a little trick. Sometimes lawyers you didn’t believe that they’d read the case good or something like that, and I had a trick I’d pull on them. I’d pick out some little obscure point in his case that nobody with good sense would ask about and I’d ask him about it. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And I did that for one thing. I wanted to make him shoot straight with me the whole case because he – I know what was running through his brain. “That stupid jerk knew about that little old unimportant thing, he has read this thing.” SHORT: [Chuckling] SMITH: It worked. It worked every time. SHORT: Well, you decided many cases as an Appellate Court Judge with the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Are there any that stand out in your memory? SMITH: Oh, yeah, several of them. I – the Williams case. Remember the Williams case? SHORT: The child [overlapping conversation]... SMITH: Yeah. I dissented in that case, and there was a lot of furor. I was called a lot of names. And I told them, I said, “What y’all don’t understand is I’m not saying he’s innocent or guilty. I’m just saying there was not evidence enough – the preponderance of the evidence – to point to him being, I mean, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to point to him as being guilty. I just think that the evidence didn’t support the verdict.” SHORT: That was the Atlanta child murder case... SMITH: That’s right. SHORT: ...decided basically on fiber evidence? SMITH: That’s right. And the thing – they called it child murders. The two people they tried him for were both grown men ; wasn’t no child or no children involved. It was grown men. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And I won’t go into this, but I think I know how they got the evidence, the fiber evidence. See, the fiber evidence never had been proven beyond a scientific – to a scientific verification in the state at that time, and that certainly was no case to determine on whether or not there was a scientific verification from the fiber evidence. SHORT: Well, there was a feeling among some that that case was hustled to a conclusion ; that they wanted to stop it, so they, you know, the guy was convicted. I don’t know whether that holds any water or not, but there was a feeling among some people at that time that that fiber evidence was a weak... SMITH: Weak tool. SHORT: Right. SMITH: Yeah. SHORT: Any other cases you remember? SMITH: Well, I don’t know why this one sticks in my brain, but it does. When I was on the Supreme Court, the law in Georgia – the case law in Georgia ; well, the law in Georgia – said that a married man could not rape his wife. And one of those came up, came to our court, and I caught it. I did a lot of background work and I wrote an opinion that said not only can a man rape his wife, this one raped this one. See, they’d separated and so... SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: ...he came back. And then I went into some detail, the background of how women – how that ever became law where a wife couldn’t be raped by her husband. And it came from the old rule, an old law like that that women when they married, they were chattels. They were treated as property by their husband and the offspring from that was that the husband – that they were treated like cattle or chattel – it’d be just like he owned a cow or horse or something and he took the position that he could do whatever he wanted to, from beating her on up or down because she was just a chattel. She wasn’t a person. She just was his property totally and he could do as he pleased. I got a lot of comment on that one. Most of it wasn’t favorable. SHORT: Uh-uh. SMITH: But, I mean, I got comments on that from men that wouldn’t dare touch their wives and I knew it, but they couldn’t – didn’t – like the idea of the way it went through. SHORT: Well, you’ve certainly had an outstanding career. If you had all those years to go over again, is there anything you might have done differently? SMITH: Yeah. I’d have run for Governor in 1966. SHORT: I meant to ask you that question. Why didn’t you decide to run for Governor in 1966? SMITH: Well, my supporters had already agreed to that, and Mills Lane was my big supporter and he had already given a 100 percent assurance of supporting me as Lieutenant Governor. But whenever Vandiver – you remember Vandiver got out? SHORT: Uh-huh. And Talmadge almost got in. SMITH: Yeah, almost. But what held me up, Mills Lane was on an extended European trip. I wasn’t about to call him in Europe to ask him to switch his allegiance to me for Governor without being able to talk to him. I knew him too well for that. And I was not going to switch from a sure support to a didn’t know whether I was gonna get support or not. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And I just told them flat out. They – I was called about it. I said, “No.” And I said, “Don’t go telling it that I’m thinking about it because I’m not,” because that’s all you have to do is say a person was thinking about it and they’ve got you running and half a dozen other people are now for lieutenant governor and you’re out in the woods. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: And I just wouldn’t do it on that very reason. SHORT: Looking back, what do you think was your greatest accomplishment? SMITH: Holding all three of those positions. That’s just about impossible to do. You’re talking about having to be in the right place at the right time a lot of times ; you had to be. SHORT: How about your biggest disappointment? SMITH: Not ever being Supreme Court Justice –I mean, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. SHORT: Time ran out? SMITH: That’s right. I got old. I reached 75 years old before I could make it. SHORT: Uh-huh. How would you like to be remembered? SMITH: As an honest, hard-working, truthful politician. SHORT: Well, you’re that. SMITH: I hope so. SHORT: And I want to thank you for Young Harris College and the Richard Russell Library at the University of Georgia and myself for being our guest. SMITH: Thank you. Appreciate being asked. * * * * * SMITH: In 1966, when I was running for Lieutenant Governor, the last Saturday before the election the following Tuesday, Bainbridge, Georgia, which is right next to Mitchell County where I was born and raised and right next to Grady County where I practiced law, had a shindig and they invited everybody down, all the candidates, to speak on Saturday. You know, they held them back in there. Television got rid of all that now. SHORT: Yeah. SMITH: So I knew what they was aiming at. Marvin was supporting Zack. Zack was born and raised in Colquitt, 24 miles up the road, and his wife was born and raised in Bainbridge. And it was plain as the nose on your face what they was gonna do. So Friday afternoon, I found out – I was told about it and they said, “We’re gonna have one person to introduce all of you.” Said, “You and Zack down here are so close, it’d be hard and fair and all that kind of stuff.” And I told them, [indiscernible] Eloise, I said, “That’s a crock. They’re gonna wind up selecting somebody to introduce them, which will be Marvin Griffin, and they’re gonna start at the bottom end of the alphabet for the first one to speak, not the top like usual.” I said, “This is a setup. now don’t give me any...” It worked out just exactly like I – at 5:00, 5:00 Friday afternoon, got a call. “Well, they’ve changed the rules on you.” I said, “I’m supposed to speak first, right?” They said, “That’s right.” I said, “That ain’t no surprise to me. I’ve been knowing they was gonna do that all the time.” Got down there the next morning and they had a big old long flatbed trailer that everybody got on where we was gonna speak. We got up there. Peter Zack’s wife was sitting on the platform right behind him. They put Eloise at the other end of the trailer – the last person at the other end in the second row. You couldn’t even tell she was back there. She’s small, you know, anyway ; you couldn’t even tell she was back there. If she was to hiccup, she’d have fallen off. And we were up front. Maddox had his few little words to say and sat down. Only reason they was few, you had a limit. (laughter) Then the next one was me, three minutes. Well, I had – I had racked my brain, “What in the world am I gonna say? What am I gonna say?” I don’t want to make it sound – no use in jumping on. I couldn’t match either one of them oratorically speaking. I knew better. Each one of them was better on the stump than I was, so don’t challenge that. You just got to do something else. Next morning, Saturday morning, we was gonna fly down. I was shaving. I came out of the bathroom and I said, “Eloise, I made up my mind.” She said, “What you gonna do?” I said, “I’m gonna brag on Marvin Griffin for the whole three minutes and never mention Zack Geer.” They called me up there and got me up there, and Zack and Peter Zack was sitting down there. I mean, Zack and Marvin was sitting down there. And Marvin had a piece of paper in his hand, and I couldn’t imagine that. I didn’t think anything about it when I saw it, but, looking back on it, that was unreal for him. He didn’t use anything to introduce anybody, particularly in a situation like that. They put me up there and the only time I mentioned Zack’s name was when I recognized him, and I spent three minutes. I tell you what I did the greatest job of lathering a man that’s ever been on the former Governor: How great he was for our community. How he had-- I’m just 24 miles away, you see. How much we appreciated him being that close to Cairo. How much he’d done for us. And how much he’d done for that part of the country. And what a great Governor he was. I got six interferences clapping, and I noticed he looked at Zack about halfway through that thing and held that paper like that. It turned out he had written his introduction of Zack down and had released to the news media! Now that was an insult to me. Now he just took that he didn’t have anything in his hands to worry about, so to heck with it. But you could tell that he was bothered. Whenever I’d finished and just feel so full of syrup ‘til you never could get it out of him. He didn’t have anything to say about me, but he did. He used it – he had to use it – he turned me every way but loose. He called me – what was his favorite expression for McGill? SHORT: Rastus. Ralph McGill? SMITH: Yeah. He said I was – he called – he referred to me all the way through as Rastus McGill’s something-or-other. It wasn’t very nice. And he just ate me up. He didn’t get a single, solitary interruption with applause the whole time. I got six. He didn’t get a one. And you could tell the crowd was getting a little restless because here was a local boy bragged on him and he was trying to take advantage of him, and you could see it was just – it was coming out. Well, some people left before he finished. Then Zack got up there and not only did Zack eat me up alive, he used five minutes to do it. By the time he got through, wasn’t anybody left except my folks. Not a single interruption did he get. Not a one. The only time in my life I ever outsmarted two smart politicians, but that just absolutely – I left them, by them putting me first. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: Of course, Zack treated me the whole way through like I was an accident. So that was a, you know, that’s a good way to have somebody run against you that thinks you’re a damn fool because you can – they don’t ever expect anything out of you. SHORT: Well, you sure turned that election around in a hurry in that runoff. SMITH: Yeah, sure did. SHORT: You were Speaker of the House, Judge Smith, during the period when Julian Bond was denied his seat. SMITH: Yes. SHORT: Do you remember that? SMITH: Yeah, it was 1965. I remember where I was when I got the call. I was speaking to an FFA group down at Sylvester, Georgia, got a telephone call from my secretary. Yvonne Redding was my secretary at that – that was number one. Deenie, I don’t know whether she’s two or three or four, but anyway she was in the office also. I got a call in Sylvester and Yvonne said, “I think you’d better come to Atlanta.” I said, “What’s important for me? Can’t the Governor take care of it?” She said, “Yes, but I think you need to be here to answer some questions too because they’re gonna be talking to you.” I said, “Well, what happened?” She said, “Well, Julian Bond burned his registration card and the (for want of a better word) segregationist group is really up in arms up here.” Said, “They’re preparing a complaint to not seat him.” And, see, this was before it started. And I said, “Who’s leading it?” And I was not surprised. What was the representative from Statesboro’s name? SHORT: Jones Lane. SMITH: Jones Lane. Golly, Jones Lane ; that’s right. And said, “Denmark Gruber is coaching him on his legal part.” I said, “Oh, God, Denmark.” Denmark Gruber was smart, a smart legislator. He was really smart and he’d been Speaker of the House – had been the Floor Leader in the House – so he knew what he was doing. And here I was Speaker the first time and I’m thrown in a ring with him. So I went back up there and she said that he had burned it and then a big hullabaloo and they was against it and wanting to know what I was gonna do. And I said, “Well, I’m gonna preside over it if it comes around to that.” So they – the Senate – passed it and refused to seat him, voted on the bill that would refuse to seat him. So whenever they voted to not seat him, I treated it like a bill. I referred it to the Judiciary Committee for y’all to decide. You’re gonna be the jury. The Judiciary Committee is going to decide whether or not the evidence put up here for the House by the two parties in the argument and all like that, whether or not it’s sufficient enough to sustain what they say. Now, see, whenever they asked for everybody to stand to take the oath, the challenge had already been thrown out for Julian, and I hadn’t been sworn in as Lieutenant Governor. I hadn’t even been sworn into the House. So I – they voted on me to be in the legislature and Julian Bond all at the same time, and Julian was in a seat that was right behind mine. And they told him to have a seat because he’d been challenged. And I’ve got a picture of me standing up taking the oath and Julian sitting down in there right behind me. And so they did that and then they gave me the oath, and then I took over from there on out. SHORT: As Speaker? SMITH: As Speaker, and I tried the case like a judge – just like a judge. And we had a fellow named Brown, Ben Brown. Do you remember Ben Brown? SHORT: Ben Brown, yeah. SMITH: He was my very close friend and he kept me – I took him into my confidence. I said, “Ben, I’ve gotta have some help.” I said, “I’ve got to know what’s fixing to take place to keep this thing on an even keel.” So we talked at length and we agreed – he agreed with me – and some things he suggested. His first suggestion was, he says, “Do not have any uniformed policemen in sight.” He said, “The people that are opposing what’s taking place here and supporting Julian,” said, “you won’t have any trouble out of ‘em if there’s no policemen around because there won’t be anybody they can jump on ; they’ll get notoriety nationwide because they’ll pick out a policeman to get in trouble.” He said, “If there’s no policemen, nothing’ll take place.” I said, “That makes sense to me.” So I put – I had patrolmen there, but I brought them in before daylight, put them in the bottom of the Capitol. Nobody knew they were there except the Governor and me. And one or two other people had to know about it and Brown knew about it. I said, “All right, I’ve already got that solved. I’m gonna put them in the basement.” He said, “That’ll save you more problems than you know.” He said, “Now what you' ; re gonna do about the balcony?” I said, “Well, you know, we’ve already opened up the balcony and there’s no – you don’t have to – you’re not seated in any particular place in the balcony ; anybody can sit anywhere they want to. Everybody knows that. It’s been announced.” He said, “Well, let me make one other suggestion.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “Don’t have anybody at the door up there passing out passes. Don’t make them have to sign in for a pass.” He said, “If you’ll do that, you’ll take the sting and the whole – you’ll just destroy their whole plan.” I said, “All right, that’s done.” Well, I didn’t tell him that I was gonna have GBI men all through the place in regular clothes. I had about six or seven of them and one or two hanging around close. And so I told that we just took all of the doorkeepers off upstairs that allowed people to go in. Just opened the doors and nobody was there. So whenever that crowd got there, Brown told me, he says, “They’re on the way.” I said, “All right. We’re ready for ‘em.” Everybody scattered. When they walked in there, they all came in a big van like, drove up right in here. SHORT: These are Bond supporters? SMITH: The Bond supporters, yeah. And they were out-of-town most of them. And they come marching through there and right upstairs and, when they got to the door, the door’s wide open, ain’t nobody there, and they started milling around like a bunch of cattle trying to cross a firewall – a fire line. They didn’t know what to do. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: They didn’t know what to do. So we had the hearing and they came in and sat down. No policemen to attack. And we just went through everything just like it was a Sunday school picnic. Got through and put ‘em in the – and then the crew went out. We were all day trying that thing. I was, I remember some prominent lawyer downtown called me up later and told me that he wanted to congratulate me on how well I handled that thing. Well, any time that nothing happens, it’s handled well, you know, whether it was handled well or not. I think if I hadn’t have had Brown, I might have done what I did but I don’t know. That guy is – he’s a – never did get much, any credit because you couldn’t give it to him. He didn’t want no credit. He said, “Don’t tell folks what I told.” He said, “Good Lord, they’ll be hanging me.” So they didn’t. And they came back, the committee, and the committee voted – I don’t – I remember it was five voted to seat him, most of them DeKalb County. And five of them ; I’m sure it was five to seat. So when he came back and they read it, I read that out and I said, you know, “Just don’t show back up under,” and he told me he was gonna appeal it. And Bond came to me after it was over with and said, “Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you something. I don’t think anybody could have been any fairer than you were.” Said, “I have no complaints about the way you’ve handled that thing and I have no animosity towards you at all.” And he told me more times than that down the line. And, boy, that was a rough time. There was a lot of tension. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: It’s just – it was just a wrong word away from a riot. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: But we’d already set one thing up. Whenever Carl and I got together before the session started and we decided that we were gonna issue a statement to the press – not hold any press conference, nothing about it – that the balconies to the House and the Senate (we cleared it with Zack, he said all right) that the balconies on the House and the Senate were open to all people. You did not have to get any permission ; all people, it was open to them. Now that, that was the first one. That didn’t make like – that didn’t make it look like we were being forced into it because if we’d have waited until we heard the--it’d look like – and we had a lot of folks mad at us. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: Folks never did know it, but the first day of the legislature one black man showed up. That’s the only black person that showed up the first day, and he came five days in a row, sat in five different places in the balcony. I don’t know what happened over at the Senate, but he was testing to see whether or not we meant it. We meant it. It was a – it wasn’t so – oh, by the way, I worked with Senator Leroy Johnson, and he was helping us. Leroy Johnson was an African-American in the right place at the right time because he had the right kind of temperament. He could work with white people and he didn’t mind it. He had that confidence. And this state owes a lot to him, him and Ben Brown. I’ll tell you that. Usually, a man who’s in a place of leadership, he gets credit for everything he’s doing. Credit for everything that’s bad. Without Ben Brown and Johnson, we couldn’t have pulled that thing off. That’s the wrong word. That thing wouldn’t have gone off as smoothly as it did... SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: ...because they – we knew what was going to happen and we knew how to – and by knowing what was going to happen, we could use preventive measures that didn’t make it look like the folks that were supporting Bond made us do it. SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: Because they never did get to raise a ruckus so they could get a policeman there... SHORT: Uh-huh. SMITH: ...because there were no policemen there. So they never could tell the world what bad people we were. SHORT: Hmm. SMITH: Okay. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL220ROGP-074.xml RBRL220ROGP-074.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP/findingaid http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-074/findingaid
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with George T. Smith, February 25, 2009
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL220ROGP-074
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
George T. Smith
Bob Short
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
State governments--Officials and employees
World War, 1939-1945
Judges--United States
United States--Veterans
Description
An account of the resource
George T. Smith joined the U.S. Navy in 1940 and after two years was placed on the Naval Land Force Equipment Depot. He left the military in 1945 and returned home. In 1948, he graduated from the University of Georgia Law School and went into private practice in Cairo, Ga. In 1958, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. In 1963, he was appointed Speaker of the House. He successfully campaigned for lieutenant governor in 1966, but was defeated for reelection by Lester Maddox in 1970. Smith went into private practice in Marietta and made an unsuccessful run for governor in 1974. In 1976, he was elected to the Georgia Court of Appeals, and in 1980, he was elected Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Smith discusses his time serving in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the Georgia government, his race for lieutenant governor, and the Julian Bond case.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-02-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Music Project Oral History Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Music Project Oral History Collection is part of the Athens Music Project (AMP), a Willson Center for Humanities and Arts research cluster co-directed by Jean Kidula and Susan Thomas. Interviews in this collection document the development of Athens as a breeding ground for multiple musical communities--the most prominent of them being the Southern independent rock scene. Other areas to be documented include a variety of African-American musical traditions, hip-hop, jazz, bluegrass, folk music traditions, Latin music, new music and conceptual sound art, classical music, and musical theater, and AthFest.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=2&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Subject
The topic of the resource
Music
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Music
Georgia--Communities
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL379AMP
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4 2020-10-27 Interview with Gregory Jones, October 27, 2020 RBRL379AMP-103 97 minutes RBRL379AMP Athens Music Project Oral History Collection Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Gregory Jones Montu Miller 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_1t0sdg4e& ; flashvars[streamerType]=auto& ; amp ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1& ; amp ; flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_mob4jn6t" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; sandbox=" ; allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; 10 Early music influences / School attendance How are you doing today? Gregory Jones talks about his mother's music, and reflects on Athens, Georgia and the University of Georgia. Jones explains his dislike for the small-town culture of Athens and his elementary school attendance. Al Green ; Athens, Georgia ; James Brown ; University of Georgia 495 School attendance / Mother's influence You know, going to college and high school... Jones explains the dual-enrollment process during high school. Jones describes his mother's influence on his life and development as a person. Jones shares his work in advanced classes and the code-switching he employed while interacting with his African American peers. Boy Scouts ; religion ; Southeastern Conference of Minority Engineers 962 High school difficulty / Joining the Army That high school experience of... Jones talks about the difficulty he had in displaying his intelligence among his peers growing up. Jones explains how his mother encouraged him to have a diverse social group and how his upbringing was interpreted by his classmates. Jones describes his work in the army as a green beret. Athens, Georgia ; football ; hip-hop ; slang 1420 Racism in the military I unabashedly live out loud... Jones talks about his reasons for joining the military. Jones describes some of the racism he experienced while in the military and the stories that were shared with him by African American Vietnam veterans. military ; racism ; survival 1862 Racism in the military (cont.) / World travels Whether you were an interracial couple... Jones talks about some of the abusive practices of his fellow soldiers and commanders during his time in the military. Jones shares some stories about rescuing prisoners of war. Jones explains the lack of prejudice he faced while visiting many countries and talks about DJ'ing. racism ; slavery ; Vietnam 2266 Hip-hop as a lifestyle It is all a part of a... Jones talks about hip-hop as a lifestyle. Jones explains the difference between the northern and southern alternative music of the 1980's, and describes his introduction to DJ'ing and rap. B-boy ; DJ ; hip-hop ; rap music 2653 DJ'ing in the military So DJ'ing at talent shows... Jones talks about his earliest music inspirations. Jones recalls his transition to DJ'ing and music-making while in the military. beat making ; military ; talent shows 3104 Making music in Athens Equipment was expensive, the Technique 1200... Jones talks about the difficulty he faced in music creation and the importance his friend Shawn Swift had in his music career. He describes his current work in music production. Jones lists some of the people he made music with through the Southern Poet Connection (SPC) and talks about the importance of hip-hop in his PTSD treatment. music creation ; Shawn Swift ; South Point Clique ; Southern Poet Collection 3473 Rapping / The significance of hip-hop That was one of the reasons I came home... Jones talks about his introduction to rapping in 1998 and describes the former perception of hip-hop as a music fad. Jones explains his view of hip-hop as the embodiment of African American culture and history. hip-hop ; rapping ; Tasty World 3838 The transition of rap music So I could see, up north... Jones continues to describe the significance of hip-hop in African American culture. Jones shares his trouble in understanding the message behind mumble rap, and his belief that the current rap scene fails to be revolutionary. Jones opines that most of the current rap played publicly is damaging to children and young adults. D.J. ; hip-hop ; revolutionary music 4261 The Southern Poet Connection (SPC) History cannot be erased... Jones lists some of the music creators and artists in the Southern Poet Connection (SPC) in Athens. Jones recalls the failure of his music group to get signed for a record. He explains the duality of Athens hip-hop culture as a representative of the social-political culture, through its ability to be embraced by the local community. Albert Green ; Eric White ; J-Welder ; Southern Poet Connection (SPC) ; Willow Wester 4719 Athens hip-hop venues So Athens's hip-hop definitely inspired... Jones talks about some of the well-known female music creators in Athens. Jones describes his love of the positive message behind the Athens hip-hop scene. Jones talks about some of the clubs that played rap music during the height of Athens hip-hop. American Music Factory (AMF) ; Insomnia (club) ; Tasty World 5064 The Hot Corner business district Let me ask you a question... Jones talks about the Athens underground hip-hop scene before it became accepted in downtown Athens. Jones describes the importance of the Hot Corner business district and the Morton Theater as the driving force behind the rise in popularity of African American music. hip-hop ; Hot Corner ; Morton Theater 5468 Changing hip-hop / Concluding thoughts There isn't too many people behind... Jones shares his opinion that hip-hop DJs should play music that embodies their cultural values and history. Jones expresses his gratitude towards his best friend, Shawn Swift. beat-boxing ; DJ Shawn Swift ; hip-hop ; rap Oral history Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL379AMP/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Augusta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
97 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL379AMP-103/ohms
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Gregory Jones, October 27, 2020
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL379AMP-103
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gregory Jones
Montu Miller
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Hip-hop
African American musicians
African American veterans
United States--Veterans
Description
An account of the resource
Gregory Jones was born and raised in Athens, Georgia. His first introduction to music was his mother’s records. Growing up and throughout adulthood, Jones left Athens many times before he eventually returned to work on his music. Jones served in the military where he also DJ’d and created music to be sent back to Athens. Jones currently produces hip-hop music in Athens, Georgia.<br /><br /><span>This interview was recorded remotely.</span>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-10-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Oral History Project was initiated in 2014 to document modern Athens history, roughly from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Interviews cover topics such as neighborhoods and communities in Athens, civil rights demonstrations, African American history, as well as personal histories of narrators.<br /><br /><span><strong>Content Warning</strong>: Some interviews in this collection contain harmful or distressing content, to include racism, racial violence, and racial slurs.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=1&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
89 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-086-01/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-086-01/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
2023-02-22
Interview with Harold Rittenberry, Part 1, February 22, 2023
RBRL361AOHP-086-01
RBRL361AOHP
Athens Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
russelluga
Harold Rittenberry
William Breeding
0
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" type="text/javascript" src='https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_00gwxo7p&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_3tugz40b" width="640" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Harold Rittenberry, Part 1, Athens Oral History Project"></iframe>
0
Family History / Day of Birth
OK, my name is William Breeding, and today I am blessed to be in the presence of Mr. Harold Rittenberry.
Mr. Rittenberry describes the various jobs his mother held throughout her life, and his father's career as a railroad foreman prior to his move to Athens. He then talks about the dirt-floored house his family lived in when he was born and the occasion of his birth.
Athens, GA; Baxter Street; Domestic service; University of Georgia; Railroad workers
0
429
Father's Work Experience
My dad, he taught himself how to be a stonemason.
Rittenberry discusses the work his father did as a stonemason, and other jobs he held such as planting victory gardens during the Second World War. He also reflects on his father's ingenuity and his death.
Masonry; War gardens; World War II; Agriculture; Tree work
0
873
Mother's Cooking / Saturday Afternoons
She was the best cook I'd ever seen.
Rittenberry recalls Saturday afternoons when his mother would make them hot dogs and fish sandwiches, and her skill as a cook. He also briefly describes how his father would collect fieldstone to build walls.
Benson's Bakery; Cooking; Merita bread; Biscuits; 1950s
0
1248
Going to the Movies
The Harlem Theater was down on Broad Street, right where the AutoZone is now.
Rittenberry recalls going to the Harlem Theater in Athens as a child to watch movies and his mishaps with his BB gun.
Sol Abrams; The Lone Ranger; Movie theaters; Bread wrappers; Red Ryder BB guns; Athens, GA
0
1738
Vehicles / Learning to Drive
Then my daddy, he brought a pickup truck home, and it was one of the oddest things I'd ever seen.
Rittenberry discusses the vehicles his father owned, and learning to drive as a child. He then describes what kinds of people owned cars in Athens at the time.
Plymouth automobiles; Hit-and-miss engines; John Deere; Cars; Chrysler
0
2149
The Second World War in Athens, GA
What were you doing when you were becoming a teenager?
Rittenberry talks about his desire to join the army and wanting to drive the trucks he saw soldiers driving through Athens during WWII. He also describes the military activity in the area during the war and his personal experiences of that time.
Bob Walker's BBQ; Homebrew; World War Two; Airplanes; Lockheed Martin
0
2722
Childhood Experiences with Animals
My mother she had chickens down there, and I was so fascinated how they would follow each other.
Rittenberry remembers his mother's chickens, and how he ate poisonous berries while trying to imitate them. He also talks about a particularly bold cow he would visit on a dairy farm on Holman Avenue.
Dairy farms; Jewish country clubs; Antisemitism; Pokeweed; Livestock
0
3153
Hot Corner and Downtown Athens
Now, do you remember Hot Corner?
Rittenberry shares his knowledge of Athens and describes the various neighborhoods in the city. He talks about the Morton Theater and other Black businesses downtown.
Bunk's Café; The Bottom; Neal Pattman; Bethel Homes; Newtown; Calloway Corner
0
3671
The Morton Theater and American Legion Club
Yeah, just like I was telling you about Hot Corner, there was the Morton Theater.
Rittenberry talks about the different acts that performed at the Morton Theater, as well as shows put on at the American Legion Club on Magnolia Street, including James Brown and Ray Charles. He then tells a story about meeting Little Richard while pulling his limousine out of the mud.
Athens, GA; Black musicians; Vaudeville; Jazz music; Nightlife
0
4274
Alps Road Airport
Up there where Kroger is on Alps Rd, it was an airport there, little old private airport.
Rittenberry discusses a private airport on Alps Road owned by a man called Major Gunner. He describes details of a deadly plane crash he witnessed there as a child.
Aviation; Major Gunner; Biplane; McDonald Funeral Home; Aviation accidents
0
4780
Military Service / Conclusion
Did you ever go in the service?
Rittenberry briefly describes his difficulties in school resulting from a hearing impairment. He then talks about his time in the military and his first time driving one of the trucks that inspired him to join the service.
Hearing impairment; U.S. Military; Peacetime service; Germany
0
oral history
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
https://wisvetsmuseum.com/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=/render.php?cachefile=RBRL361AOHP-086-01.xml
RBRL361AOHP-086-01.xml
http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP/findingaid
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Harold Rittenberry, Part 1, February 22, 2023
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Artists
African American artists
United States. Army--Soldiers
African American veterans
United States--Veterans
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harold Rittenberry
William Breeding
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-02-22
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
rbrl361aohp-086-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Description
An account of the resource
Harold Rittenberry Jr. was born in Athens, Georgia in 1938. As a young man he joined the Army and was deployed to Germany. He returned to Athens in 1957 and worked several jobs throughout the years before he was able to make a living as an artist. In this interview, he talks about his upbringing in Athens and ends with his joining the Army.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Oral History Project was initiated in 2014 to document modern Athens history, roughly from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Interviews cover topics such as neighborhoods and communities in Athens, civil rights demonstrations, African American history, as well as personal histories of narrators.<br /><br /><span><strong>Content Warning</strong>: Some interviews in this collection contain harmful or distressing content, to include racism, racial violence, and racial slurs.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=1&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
121 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-086-02/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-086-02/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
2023-03-09
Interview with Harold Rittenberry, Part 2, March 9, 2023
RBRL361AOHP-086-02
RBRL361AOHP
Athens Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
russelluga
Harold Rittenberry
William Breeding
0
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" type="text/javascript" src='https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_di369oy5&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_3tugz40b" width="640" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Harold Rittenberry, Part 2, Athens Oral History Project"></iframe>
0
Voyage from the United States to West Germany
My name is William Breeding, and today I'm here with Mr. Rittenberry, and we're going to do part two of our interview.
Mr. Rittenberry talks about the trip to West Germany on a troop transport ship, and recalls seasickness and the experience of being far from land in the Mid-Atlantic.
Fort Dix, NJ; United States Military; USS General George M. Randall; Bremerhaven, Germany; New York, New York
0
585
Beginnings of Military Service in Germany
So, that's the way I started my tour in Germany.
Rittenberry discusses his arrival in Germany and acquiring a truck and a .50 caliber machine gun so that he could work as a driver for the artillery.
Baumholder, Germany; U.S. Army Artillery; Prime movers; Motorpool
0
1182
Cold War Experiences
The big gun was so big, and was so clumsy, they knew everywhere we went with that thing.
Rittenberry talks about the tension between the USSR and United States during his time in Germany, and the surveillance conducted by both sides. He also shares his belief that his presence in Germany was necessary to maintain peace and limit the spread of communism.
The Soviet Union; 868th Field Artillery Battalion; The Cold War; Observation / Surveillance
0
1697
Leaving Germany
When I left Athens I was a teenager, when I came back I was a man.
Rittenberry discusses the end of his deployment in Germany and the trip back across the Atlantic to the United States.
Short-timers; U. S. Military; Fort Jackson, SC
0
2146
Return to Athens / Coming of Age
I couldn't find a black cab nowhere, they had gone off duty that night.
Rittenberry describes his return to Athens, and sharing a drink with his father and a white taxi driver. He then recalls the moment he knew he was back in the United States and his birthday party that year.
Segregated taxi cabs; Liquor; Family; Birthday party
0
2640
Change in Athens, GA
We went out to a club that night, went to the VFW.
Rittenberry describes the changes he saw upon returning to Athens. Notably, the construction of Rocksprings Homes, and changing gender roles. He then talks about Hot Corner and Wilson's Barber Shop.
Baxter Street; Hurley Funeral Home; Otis Haynes Sr.; Hot Corner; Wilson's Styling Shop
0
3063
Black Businesses on Hot Corner
It was an insurance company there. It had three or four floors of that building for offices.
Rittenberry provides a detailed accounting of the various businesses on Hot Corner when he returned from his deployment in 1957.
Burke's Record Shop; Bunk's Café; Brown's Barber Shop; Winfrey Mutual Funeral Home; Calloway Corner; Downtown Athens, GA; Dr. Ida Mae Hiram; E. D. Harris Drugstore
0
3480
Work Experience in New Jersey
Well, I went through a lot before I got to be an artist.
Rittenberry talks about his time spent working in New Jersey. There he worked on two farms, maintained a Jewish cemetery, was shot at, and almost became engaged to a young woman before returning to Athens.
New Jersey; Garden plot rental; Cemetery workers strike; Truck farming; Potato farming
0
4168
Experience in the Restaurant Industry
And so the next morning I went up to the restaurant out there of Broad St., and looked at the job.
Rittenberry describes working as a short-order cook in a restaurant in Athens. He talks about his inexperience in the field and the ways his mother trained him, and his reasons for quitting the job to work for Callaway Gardens Apartments despite being paid less money.
Restaurant business; Wages; Short-order cooks; Callaway Gardens Apartments; Labor; Food service industry
0
4711
Time as a School Bus Driver
I worked down at Callaway Gardens for, I think, eight or ten years, and then one day I got tired of that.
Rittenberry talks about leaving Callaway Gardens Apartments and getting a job as a school bus driver for Athens Academy, which he held for several years. He then describes a particularly powerful tornado that hit Athens in 1971.
Athens Academy; School buses; Private schools; Natural disasters
0
5157
Work Experience Continued
Got a job at Dearing Garden Apartments, went back to the apartment business.
Rittenberry continues to discuss various jobs he has held through the years. Most notably he talks about working at Big G Department stores, and describes it as one of the best jobs he has had.
L.M. Leathers & Sons; Northeast Georgia Regional Commission; Big G Department Stores; Beechwood Shopping Center; Jim Reedy
0
5615
The 1996 Olympics / Origins of a Career in Art
So, when I left there I went into business for myself.
Rittenberry discusses the beginning of his career as a professional artist, and explains how he was commissioned to create a set of benches for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Small engine repair; Robert D. Clements; 1996 Olympics; Welding; Art / Metalwork
0
6153
Selecting Materials for the Olympic Benches / The Hazards of Metalwork
I went out there and I asked them, I said "I was over there looking in your shed"...
Rittenberry describes the process of buying the metal needed to construct benches for the 1996 Olympics. He then explains the dangers of welding stainless steel, and the reasons he no longer works with that material.
Alewine Auto Salvage; Stainless steel; Public art; Metalworking
0
6433
Entry into the Business of Art
Jimmy Allen is a picker. A picker that would go around looking for antiques.
Rittenberry describes meeting a picker named Jimmy Allen who exposed him to the possibility of selling his art. He recalls being shocked at what Allen and others were willing to pay for his work.
Pickers; Slotin Folk Fest; Art exhibitions; Folk art
0
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/09/garden/42000-miles-a-year-on-the-antiques-track.html
Article on Jimmy Allen published in The New York Times in 1995.
6944
Conclusion
But anyway, it's been a real good life for me.
Rittenberry shares his philosophy on business and how he prioritizes compassion and fairness in his dealings. The interview concludes.
Business; Honesty; Compassion
0
oral history
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
https://wisvetsmuseum.com/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=/render.php?cachefile=RBRL361AOHP-086-02.xml
RBRL361AOHP-086-02.xml
http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP/findingaid
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Harold Rittenberry, Part 2, March 9, 2023
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
African American artists
Artists
African American veterans
United States--Veterans
Cold War
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harold Rittenberry
William Breeding
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-03-09
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
rbrl361aohp-086-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Description
An account of the resource
<strong>Content Warning:</strong> This interview includes details of graphic death.<br /><br />Harold Rittenberry Jr. was born in Athens, Georgia in 1938. As a young man he joined the Army and was deployed to Germany. He returned to Athens in 1957 and worked several jobs throughout the years before he was able to make a living as an artist. In this interview he describes his deployment to West Germany during the Cold War, and the numerous professions he has held throughout his life. He then goes on to describe being commissioned to construct benches for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and his career as a full-time artist.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard B. Russell Library Oral History Documentary Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history collection consisting of interviews conducted for the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies since 2003.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=3&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here. </a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-ongoing
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL175OHD
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Hyperlink
A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet.
Location
The location of the interview
Waycross, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
111 minutes
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL175OHD-038/video" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview</a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL175OHD-038
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Jimmy Stewart, Jr., February 13, 2019
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jimmy Stewart Jr.
Ashton Ellett
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-02-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Subject
The topic of the resource
Business enterprises
Economic development
United States--Veterans
Description
An account of the resource
Businessman James E. (Jimmy) Stewart, Jr. discusses growing up in South Georgia in the 1930s and 1940s, attending the University of Georgia, serving in the United States Army in Cold War Europe, and running a family-owned, small business in Waycross, Georgia. Other topics of interest include Stewart’s role at the Stewart Candy Company, views on economic development, and various family memories.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Oral History Project was initiated in 2014 to document modern Athens history, roughly from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Interviews cover topics such as neighborhoods and communities in Athens, civil rights demonstrations, African American history, as well as personal histories of narrators.<br /><br /><span><strong>Content Warning</strong>: Some interviews in this collection contain harmful or distressing content, to include racism, racial violence, and racial slurs.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=1&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Remote interview
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
64 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-037/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview</a></span></h3>
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-037/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
2022-04-22
Interview with John Clark, April 22, 2022
RBRL361AOHP-037
64 minutes
RBRL361AOHP
Athens Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
John Clark
William Breeding
0
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_as73ab3x&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_q8tz918k" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="John Clark, Athens Oral History Project"></iframe>
0
Introduction / memories of Athens
Okay, um, the date is April the twenty-second 2022.
Clark is briefly introduced by Breeding. Clark mentions some of the things he remembers most about Athens as a child, including moving to Athens from Oglethorpe County.
1950s;1960s;Athens-Clarke County, Ga.;Black history;Hot Corner;Morton Theater;The Bottom
243
Family and home life
Tell me a little bit about your family dynamics as a little boy.
Clark talks about being in a family of twelve children - four boys and eight girls - living on a farm. Him and his older brother, Otis Clark, Jr., were responsible for running the farm, and they also assisted some neighbors with their farms as well.
1940s;1950s;1960s;argiculture;domestic servants;Freddie Mae Johnson-Clark;Otis Clark, Sr.
445
Black Athens
Now, I want to go back to, uh - you talked about coming to Athens.
Clark recalls the Black community his aunt lived in along Baxter Street, Linnentown, also known as Lindentown, and how it has been demolished to make student housing for the university. He talks about the variety of businesses that were located in the Morton Theater, Hot Corner, and other places of note to the Black community off of North Avenue and along the Oconee River. He discusses Black land ownership then and now.
1950s;1960s;bootlegging;Brown's Barber Shop;Hancock Corridor;Homer Wilson;Pink Morton;University of Georgia;urban renewal;Wilson Styling Shop
1047
Displacement of Black communities
What, uh, what caused that shift, do you think?
Clark explains the damage that the displacement of the Black community has caused in the name of further developing the university. He discusses how this has happened across the country for different reasons, but that it has always been detrimental for Black people.
1950s;1960s;economic racism;gentrification;institutionalized racism;University of Georgia;urban renewal
1281
Educational experiences
Okay, and um, when did you come back from the army?
Clark reveals that it was after his father died that his family moved to Athens in 1965, where he finished high school. After how his family was treated in Oglethorpe, he kept himself busy with work to keep out of conflict. He describes the coincidence of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the start of his military service, and how race relations within the military were tense.
1960s;1970s;Burney-Harris High School;Charlayne Hunter-Gault;Creswell Hall;Hamilton Holmes;integration;racism;segregation;terrorism;University of Georgia
1672
Civil rights in Athens
So as long as you were working a domestic job, you were pretty much left alone?
Clark recalls having to have thick skin if Black people wanted to work, as they may be working for someone racist. He talks about the protests and marches and says that he was somewhat aware of them, but that no one approached him to get him involved, so he wasn’t.
1960s;1970s;<i>If We So Choose</i>;Ken Dious;racism;segregation
1900
Activism
Now I’m, uh, I’m gonna switch gears now.
Clark explains that his activism started while he was in the military, and it was when he returned to Athens that he became involved in the civil rights movement. He connected with several influential people in Athens and became involved in local politics, advocating for workers’ rights and civil rights.
1970s;campaigning;East Side;Edward L. Turner;Ken Dious;labor unions;NAACP;Savannah State University;University of Georgia
2302
Building a family
Well, uh, you mentioned your - where you met your wife.
Clark describes his philosophy about dating and marriage, recalling how he met his wife in January of 1972. He passed the bar exam in 1979, got a job at the district attorney’s office, and the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter, in 1983, after they had gained financial stability. He explains the significance of his daughter’s name, Nefertara, and how he wasn’t concerned about having a son to carry on the family name as “a name carries itself.”
1970s;1980s;Baton Rouge, La.;economic stability;Johnson & Johnson;love
2780
Mary Clark
Now, your wife is a teacher, am I correct?
Clark shares his wife’s career trajectory, eventually gaining her teaching certificate. He explains that her mother was an activist and an entrepreneur, so his wife had an activist’s spirit.
1970s;1980s;family;fashion;Johnson & Johnson
2928
Morality over money
Now, Nefertara is an attorney as well. In fact, uh - talk to me about your law firm and some of the things you have done.
Clark explains that the Georgia Legal Services wouldn’t hire him; instead, he got a position as a Child Support Director in Elberton. He desperately wanted to practice civil rights law, but the NAACP Legal Defense Fund rejected his request for scholarship money so that he could attend law school. He describes some of his early lawsuits dealing with civil rights, how they didn’t make money, but that they were rewarding all the same.
1980s;1990s;Baton Rouge, La.;domestic law;Elbert County, Ga.;Hall County, Ga.;public sector;redistricting
3433
Mentors / conclusion
Well, also, for those who are listening, Attorney Clark has a book that was written by his daughter called <i>Daddy, Tell Me a Story</i>.
Clark encourages the Black community to write their stories to document their history. He recalls the influential mentors he has had throughout his life and how they impacted his character. He stresses the importance of the Black community in particular to find mentors that they can respect and look up to.
community;family;military service;Savannah State University
oral history
No transcript.
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Clark, April 22, 2022
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Civil rights
Discrimination
African American veterans
United States--Veterans
United States--Civil rights
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John Clark
William Breeding
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-04-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP-037
Description
An account of the resource
John Clark was raised in Oglethorpe County in a family of twelve siblings and moved to Athens upon the death of his father in 1965. After completing Burney-Harris High School, he served in the military before returning to Georgia and studying law at Savannah State University. In this interview, he recounts his experiences growing up at the end of the Jim Crow era, his path to activism, and how his career has shown him that serving the community is more important than making a profit. He also discusses community relations in the Black community and how he feels that they are too focused on sports today, instead of resurrecting strong intergenerational relationships.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard B. Russell Library Oral History Documentary Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history collection consisting of interviews conducted for the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies since 2003.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=3&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here. </a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-ongoing
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL175OHD
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL175OHD-029/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4 Interview with John Vaughn, July 7, 2016 RBRL175OHD-029 RBRL175OHD Ruseell Library Oral History Documentary Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia John Vaughn Ashton Ellett oral history 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_fxbkiz5b& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=0_h5abij6t" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 17 Growing up in Rome, Georgia Tell us a little bit about growing up in Rome? John Vaughn talks about his childhood growing up in Rome, Georgia. Vaughn shares that southern Rome was a segregated community, split among blacks and whites in the area. Vaughn recalls his transition from living in rural southern Rome to attending Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia. Vaughn explains that his early college years proved difficult as he only had funds for the necessities which he felt made him stand out in comparison to his peers. Atlanta,Georgia ; Floyd County ; Morris Brown College ; Rome Colored School ; Rome, Georgia 393 Staying in New York / Korean War draft I knew that I had to have money... Vaughn talks about his transition from living in rural Georgia to working in Hempstead, New York where he worked a summer job between his freshman and sophomore year at Morris Brown College. Vaughn shares that while in New York, he experienced less segregation and often enjoyed the entertainment the city had to offer. Vaughn recalls that he was eventually drafted into the army where he was trained by the National Guard before he was transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington. Vaughn states that he was then stationed in Korea in the early 1950's in an engineer combat battalion (ECB) during the Korean War. Apollo Theater ; burlesque shows ; engineer combat battalion (ECB) ; Fort Lewis ; Hempstead, New York ; Morris Brown College ; National Guard ; Rome, Georgia 683 Working as an Engineer Combat Battalion (ECB) So you served with an engineering unit? Vaughn talks about his experience working in the engineer combat battalion (ECB) in the early 1950's during the Korean war. Vaughn shares that the army was integrated during his service. Vaughn explains that while he was in the Korean war zone, his main duty was as a support operator for the infantry. Vaughn recalls that as a supply provider, he occasionally came under attack by the Korean opposition. Vaughn states that he was injured twice while on duty and was eventually transferred to Japan for treatment and then North Carolina as his second injury deemed him unfit for military service. Vaughn explains that upon returning to Rome, Georgia, he had a heightened awareness of the city's segregation and prejudice toward African Americans, and he states that this eventually led him to become involved in Georgia politics. 25th Engineer Combat Battalion ; infantry ; Mortar 1097 Leaving the military setting What did you do after you got back from the war? Vaughn explains that he came to go to college in Knoxville, Tennessee upon returning from his military service. Vaughn states that he initially wanted to be a doctor, but didn't pass the entrance exam into medical school. Vaughn recalls that he eventually came to Waco, Georgia where he taught biology, chemistry, and english to middle schoolers. Bremen, Georgia ; Howard University ; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ; Waco, Georgia ; World War II 1498 Coaching basketball / Attending the University of Georgia Did you forsee yourself staying in education, staying in... Vaughn talks about his experience teaching in Summerville, Georgia where he coached a basketball team. Vaughn recalls how he came to attend a truant officer program at the University of Georgia over the summer. Vaughn explains that, during his summers at the University of Georgia he often faced prejudice at the newly integrated university. Athens, Georgia ; Summerville, Georgia ; University of Georgia 2329 Returning to Floyd County / Owning a bar Were Rome and Floyd county schools desegregated by this time? Vaughn talks about his experience working in Floyd County and Rome as the only African American teacher. Vaughn explains that the segregated atmosphere in the school gradually dissipated over the ten years he worked there. Vaughn relates his experience owning a previously white-owned grocery store and explains that, while working the store, he often faced hesitation from other African Americans buying his foods as his customers were not as partial to buying food from a black owner. Vaughn states that this attitude eventually led him to convert the store into a bar that served a wide food selection. bar ; National Science Foundation ; Rome, Georgia ; The Chicken Shack 2726 Selling the Chicken Shack / Administering at Coosa High School How long did you have the pool hall and Chicken Shack operating? Vaughn talks about his experience owning a bar while working at Coosa High School as a chemistry teacher. Vaughn explains that he came to sell the bar after the customers proved to be too rambunctious. Vaughn recalls the impact his bar had on the community and explains he regrets selling the bar, as many of the older community members still reminisce about it. Vaughn talks about how he eventually came to work in school administration at Coosa High School in Rome, GA. Coosa High School ; education administration ; Rome, Georgia ; The Chicken Shack 3182 Administering at Coosa High School (cont.) I've been in the army, you know... Vaughn talks about how he applied some of the physics he learned while in the military to the classroom in the effort to teach kids hands-on. Vaughn shares his ideas on how the lack of originality in recent teaching has led students to need more assistance in subjects such as mathematics. Vaughn recalls that Coosa High School had a low African American population and he talks about his job as the assistant principal at Coosa High School as the administrator of funds, handler of discipline, and the occasional teacher. active learning ; Army ; Coosa High School ; hands-on learning ; inclined planes ; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ; University of Georgia 3613 Civil rights experiences / Retirement When did you get involved with those two organizations? Vaughn shares his experience in civil rights as a member of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Vaughn emphasizes that his primary civil right's work came from working at the Floyd County Democratic Association and he recalls that his favorite experience while in the Democratic Association was in assisting African Americans to vote. Vaughn shares his disappointment in the current low African-American voting turnout. Vaughn talks about his life after he retired from the position of principal at Johnson Elementary School. Floyd County Democratic Association ; Johnson Elementary School (Rome, Georgia) ; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 4098 Changes in Rome, Georgia Just to wrap up, describe for me how Rome has changed... Vaughn talk about the ways in which Rome,Georgia has changed from his childhood. Vaughn states that more African Americans have been integrated as city council officials, and that a woman has taken the position as Chief-of-Police. Vaughn shares that, after retiring, while his wife has been more involved in the community, he has chosen to enjoy more leisure activities. Vaughn opines that while the majority of Rome has changed for the better, there are still some communities in poverty. Vaughn talks about a bar he used to own, called the Chicken Shack, which was located on Dwinell Street in Rome, Georgia. Chicken Shack ; Denise Downer-McKinney ; Rome, Georgia 4977 Family relations Your father, just to come full circle... Vaughn recalls that though his father was a Baptist preacher, he never voiced his feelings about his son owning a bar. Vaughn shares his opinion towards his father, as he states that his father as a non-materialistic person, often failed to give adequate care and attention to his family during Vaughn's childhood. Vaughn states that his father rarely gave his family anything, and his mother provided him with all his necessities. Baptist Church ; Chicken Shack ; preacher No transcript. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL175OHD-029.xml RBRL175OHD-029.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL175OHD/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Rome, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
91 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Vaughn, July 7, 2016
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL175OHD-029
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
John Vaughn
Ashton Ellett
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
African American veterans
Civil rights
United States. Army--Soldiers
Discrimination
African American teachers
United States--Veterans
United States--Civil rights
High school teachers
Description
An account of the resource
John Vaughn was born in Rome, Georgia during the 1930s. Vaughn attended Morris Brown College and served in the Korean War as a battalion engineer. Vaughn taught in Summerville, Mississippi and has participated in the civil rights initiatives of Mississippi and Rome, Georgia. In this interview, Vaughn talks about his military experience, his teaching experience, his work in the NAACP, and changes in Rome, Georgia.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-07
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Rome, Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-002/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
Interview with Johnny Goodrum, February 10, 2016
RBRL418GAA-002
RBRL418GAA
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Johnny Goodrum
John Cruickshank
oral history
1:|21(13)|29(6)|45(12)|57(51)|63(23)|71(24)|75(22)|77(56)|79(105)|83(40)|89(2)|99(37)|111(39)|125(15)|133(2)|137(56)|145(64)|149(70)|169(3)|169(143)|171(9)|177(139)|181(75)|201(8)|205(13)|205(129)|205(302)|205(479)|205(625)|205(798)|217(71)|225(60)|225(198)|233(6)|241(8)|245(123)|245(273)|245(438)|245(585)|245(709)|247(46)|249(79)|251(10)|253(134)|253(290)|253(456)|253(621)|253(759)|265(18)|267(132)|271(70)|275(39)|295(10)|303(78)|321(22)|323(85)|331(10)|339(43)|347(39)|347(179)|357(50)|357(165)|357(330)|365(85)|375(11)|377(14)|379(115)|379(263)|379(417)|379(584)|393(9)|409(27)|421(74)|433(14)
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_10i34og0&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&&wid=1_kdjg5qmb" width="400" height="285" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe>
English
0
Introduction / Hometown, family, early school years
I’m John Cruickshank, it’s Wednesday, February the 10th, 2016, it’s 2:32 PM and today I’m interviewing …
In this section, Mr. Goodrum discusses his early life in Griffin, GA, his family, and his grade school years. He talks about the segregation of schools and the sports he was involved in, saying that black and white children were not allowed to compete with one another.
AZ Kelsey Academy;AZ Kelsey Junior High School;Broad Street School;Cabin Creek School;Fairmont Georgia;Fairmont High School;Griffin;Griffin High School;Integrated School;Integration;Jeremiah Bond;Rosenwald School;Segregated School;Segregation;Spalding County;Spalding County School System;Vocational High School
922
Discussion of Jim Crow
How would you describe Jim Crow in Griffin in your early adult life in Griffin? Was it alive and well and functioning, and to what extent?
Goodrum discusses the institution of Jim Crow segregation which existed when he was growing up in Griffin. He also relates several stories about his grandfather, who chastised him for saying that he "didn't see anything wrong" with blacks and whites going to school together.
Black Codes;Civil Rights;Fairmont;Georgia;Griffin;Integration;Jim Crow Laws;Plessy v. Ferguson;Segregation;Separate But Equal;Spalding County;United States Air Force
Air Force Service / College at Fort Valley State University
So, at some point there was a transition … I want to get to two things, one, I want to get to your college carreer a little bit, but I also want to get to the transition from … in Griffin
In this segment Mr. Goodrum discusses the end of his high school career, his millitary service in the United States Air Force, and his education at Fort Valley State University. He talks about making Caucasian friends in the Air Force that encouraged him to get a college education.
Fort Valley State University;Jim Crow Laws;L.C. Hefner;Mitchell AFB;Morehouse College;Plessy v. Ferguson;Segregation;Separate But Equal;Stuart AFB
1894
Postgraduate Years / Work as an Educator in Jones County & Spalding County
So after fort valley state …?
In this segment Mr. Goodrum talks about his time following graduation from Fort Valley State University as a Physical Education teacher and athletics coach. He discusses what it was like being in the middle of the transition from segregated schools to integrated schools and relates the story of the walk-out by African-American students of Fairmont High School.
Desegregation;Fairmont High School;Gray;Griffin High School;Integrated School;Integration;Jones County;Phillip Hood;Rosenwald School;Segregated School;Segregation;The Roxy Theatre;Walk-Out
2577
Working at the Roxy Theater for H.T Stafford
Well because of your success and your leadership, it paved the way for other folks to be able to come behind you and get those kind of positions I assume.
Goodrum talks about how he wanted to get a job at the Roxy Theater as a janitor while he was in high school. The owner, H.T Stafford, said that he would give him the job only if he stayed in school and continued to pass his classes. Goodrum says that Stafford became a mentor to him and taught him the value of a dollar.
bank accounts;college;dropout;Fairmont High School;football;football scholarships
2928
Discussion of the Griffin economy prior to integration
In general, what was the economy like as you grew up, for African Americans in Griffin?
In this segment Mr. Goodrum discusses the economy of Griffin during segregation and the opportunities that were available to African-Americans during that time.
A.C. Touchstone;Ed Faunfill;Georgia;Griffin;grocery stores;Otis Head;Pete Lovett;Phillip Head;Please You Cleaners;Raymond Head;Republican Party;Spalding County
3303
Principalship at Griffin High School
Now tell us a little bit about your principalship. You did get to be a principal during the transitional period.
Mr. Goodrum talks about his time spent as a school principal during desegregation and the athletic facilities that were available to African-Americans in segregated schools in Griffin.
Fairmont High School;Griffin High School;Molette’s Gym;Principal
3503
Social life surrounding Fairmont High School days
I’ve often heard about festive parades and that kind of thing in Griffin during that period of time …
Mr. Goodrum recalls the festive atmosphere that surrounded Fairmont High School football games and the parades put on by the Fairmont High School Band.
Fairmont High School;Fairmont High School Band;Majorette;Parade;Veterans Memorial Park
3602
Final thoughts on the effects of integration
So overall what are your feelings about integration … was it all good? What were the bad aspects of it? Were there bad aspects of it?
Mr. Goodrum shares his final thoughts on the effects of integration and its effects on the African American community. He believes that Griffin has "come a long way but still has a long way to go."
Birmingham, Alabama;Civil Rights;Desegregation;Fairmont;Fairmont High School;Georgia;Griffin;Integrated School;Integration;mule hole;Orville Lindstorm;Segregated School;Segregation;Separate But Equal;Spalding County;St. Phillip's Church
RBRL418GAA-002_Goodrum JOHN CRUIKSHANK: I’m John Cruikshank. It’s Wednesday, February the 10th, 2016. It’s 2:32 p.m. And today, I’m interviewing... JOHN D. GOODRUM: John D. Goodrum. CRUIKSHANK: And I also have with me today, to join in the discussion... BE-ATRICE CUNNINGHAM: Be-Atrice Cunningham. CRUIKSHANK: And? ART CAIN: Art Cain. JEWEL WALKER-HARPS: Jewel Walker-Harps. CRUIKSHANK: And so just to start off, Mr. Goodrum, could you please tell us when and where you were born, and where you grew up. GOODRUM: I was born in (Riordan?), Griffin, Spalding County. Attend school in the Griffin, Spalding County School System, and this is my one and only place, as far as living was concerned, in Georgia, right in Griffin, Georgia. CRUIKSHANK: And tell us a little bit about your family now. Did you have any siblings? Where were your parents from? GOODRUM: My father was born in Monroe County. My mother was born in Riordan, Griffin, Spalding County. And the two of them was married forever and a day. (laughter) CRUIKSHANK: And what do you remember about your grandparents? GOODRUM: Well, I remember my grandmothers used to kind of pull straws over me, because I was the oldest grandchild, and mother would have to go between the two of them and make sure, you know, that they had equal time as far as who was going to have the grandbaby. And I was real blessed to have super parents and real great grandparents, too. Real fortunate. CRUIKSHANK: Do you have any children? GOODRUM: No children. CRUIKSHANK: And what schools did you go to? GOODRUM: Broad Street Elementary School, Cabin Creek Elementary School, Kelsey Junior High School, vocational, and later on, Fairmont High School, in Griffin, Spalding County. WALKER-HARPS: The first one was what kind of creek? Ball Creek, did you say, Elementary School, before Cabin Creek? GOODRUM: No, Broad Street. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, Broad Street. Okay. GOODRUM: That area that’s where Scott’s Service Station is, the school’s right located there. WALKER-HARPS: Okay, okay. And Cabin Creek was basically where Moore Elementary... GOODRUM: That’s true, but it was a big building (inaudible), kind of a private school for African American youth, and it became somewhat along the line a part of Griffin, Spalding County school system. CAIN: So if we back up, were you an only child? GOODRUM: No, there was two of us. CAIN: There was two of us. So you did have a sibling. GOODRUM: One child died, I think was about three or four weeks old. I was the older of the three, and then Jay, the one that died, my brother Eddie, who is now deceased. CAIN: So what was it like in the community around your house? Did you have other kids that you grew up with, that you were close to, friends, that kind of thing, those folks who you may have maintained relationships with over periods of time? Period of time? GOODRUM: Well, there’s one guy I would say that stands out above all the others, Jeremiah Bond. We lived close together, but not right in the same neighborhood. He was a couple years older than I. He is a couple of years older than I am, and he was formed with a good mind, what have you, good athlete, and I admired an awful lot of the things that he was able to do, so I kind of patterned -- I tried to, rather, pattern myself after him a lot. As a matter of fact, we do a lot of talking now between Milton and Griffin. We’re still good friends. CAIN: And I understand you were a pretty good athlete. GOODRUM: Well, it depends on who’s (laughter) passing the judgment, I guess. I was fair. I was fair, I think. WALKER-HARPS: So which sports were you involved in? GOODRUM: Well, track, football, baseball, and... That’s going to be about the best of it (inaudible). Track and football were my best sports. WALKER-HARPS: You were in a situation, in both situations, where the schools were integrated, and before they were integrated, in terms of sports. What difference did you find when you were at Fairmont and what you experienced when you were in the integrated system? GOODRUM: Well, the situation was totally different because of the facilities, and they improved the building, the equipment, and everything. You had a shortage of equipment or what have you because we didn’t quite get the same amount of financing that the Caucasian kids would get. So we had to do a lot of begging and, as a matter of fact, when I played high school football, we used to go over to Griffin High school, and they had an old box, and they had head gear, shoulder pads, and all things, they’d put it in old boxes. We’d go over and talk with the coach, and he’d let us go through and get some equipment that we could use for football. WALKER-HARPS: On a performance level, how would you rate yourselves, in particularly in comparison with the Caucasian children? GOODRUM: Well, I could outrun all of them. (laughter) I was truly blessed to have quite a bit of speed. The first state track meet that I participated in, I won second place in the finals, and I placed in the long jump and all that other. The Good Lord kind of blessed me pretty well when it comes to having an athletic build. CAIN: Probably at that time, there were separated athletic associations, so that you all went to -- you competed against other African American schools around, maybe, Georgia at the state level, versus competing against schools that were primarily by white kids. And so when you say you finished second, you finished second statewide in the hundred or two hundred in the African American association, athletic association, whatever that was. How did all that work? GOODRUM: Well, first of all, it was against the law for there to be any participating between African American and Caucasian. So we didn’t even go on the same field where Caucasian were. You know, as a matter of fact, you know where Mount Zion Baptist Street is over on Taylor Street? Well, that parking lot which is across the street down Forrest Street, that’s where I went to seventh grade. All the African American children in this county attended school there in the seventh grade at that building, and believe it or not, because I’m not pulling your leg one (inaudible) of what I tell you this: the Griffin High School capital there, which is right across the street from where we were at Kelsey, but I don’t ever remember taking a real good look at it, because it was just... It was a no-no. You don’t bother with that. You don’t touch it. You don’t cross the land or anything. So it was foreign property. It was on the same street and all, only difference on the other side of the street, but it was in another world. WALKER-HARPS: Was that the site of the (Laver?) and the little green building that was for African Americans -- wasn’t there Laver in that area -- GOODRUM: Well, that’s the site where we went to what we called Kelsey Junior High School. That’s where we went to seventh grade. Across from that is the Coca-Cola Company, which has long been defunct. But the amazing thing about that: the Caucasian children could walk across our property, our school ground, going home or coming to school, but we couldn’t cross theirs, you know. (laughter) It was a no-no. CAIN: You went to first grade through the seventh -- or seventh or eighth grade at Kelsey Junior High? GOODRUM: It was one grade. It was just seventh grade. All African American seventh graders attended Kelsey. Just one -- it was a one-year step. We would go to elementary school, one through four, then we’d go over to... what is now the morgue building, Cabin Creek, it was called then. We’d attend the Cabin Creek until the sixth, and then we’d go over to Taylor Street for the seventh grade. CAIN: So three facilities. GOODRUM: From there back to Fairmont. CAIN: Remember who your teachers and principals were in those various schools? GOODRUM: Oh, (inaudible) it was... CAIN: Or was it just one person who was the instructor for each grade? How did that work? GOODRUM: Well, grades one through four was at the elementary school (inaudible) Broad Street Elementary School, and Ms. (Millett?). I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I had her name wrong (inaudible). (Goldwire?), Mrs. C.B. Goldwire, was the principal, and she also taught the fourth grade. And we would be there for four years, and then we would go over to... WALKER-HARPS: Cabin Creek. GOODRUM: Cabin Creek Elementary School, and we’d be there for two years, fifth and sixth grade. Then we’d go over to Taylor for one year. Then we had the three years’ stay at Fairmont. CAIN: So what’s now eighth, ninth, and tenth was at Fairmont. GOODRUM: Yeah. CAIN: What about in eleventh and twelfth grade year? GOODRUM: No twelfth. There was no twelfth grade until... ’50 -- ’53. That was the first graduating class was in 1953. Twelfth grade was (inaudible). Twelfth grade. And we -- I finished the eleventh grade (inaudible) High School. That was the extent of being in school then. CRUIKSHANK: Was their twelfth grade for Caucasians? GOODRUM: Yes, that was the... CRUIKSHANK: Always, mm-hm. CAIN: So did that -- did you all have any problems with things like getting admitted to college as a result of just going to the eleventh grade? Was it strictly vocational? Tell us a little bit about how it was set up academically. GOODRUM: You mean for the entrance requirements? CAIN: Yeah, in other words, obviously there were a lot of bright kids who came through, and -- who may have had an interest in continuing their education at college or something like that. I just wondered if there were any impediments if you didn’t have that twelfth grade year. GOODRUM: Well, that was the requirement, you know. (inaudible) complete the eleventh grade, and you forfeit all of the academic requirements, then you would be eligible to attend an African American college in the state of Georgia. WALKER-HARPS: What do you remember about C.B. Goldwire? GOODRUM: She had a nice house down on the corner of Chappell and Second, and she was mean as all get out. (laughter) (inaudible) But she was a good lady. She did an awful good job of running the school, and there was no fooling around. You had to be about your academic business (inaudible). WALKER-HARPS: Is there a relationship with -- between Paul -- Ms. Goldwire and the (inaudible), or am I talking about two different establishments? GOODRUM: You’re talking about two different establishments. Ms. Goldwire might have been instrumental in the school, but then she was with the public school system over at Broad Street. The other one was kind of a public thing, a public affair. WALKER-HARPS: How would you describe Jim Crow and Griffin in your early adult life? Was it alive and well and functioning, and to what extent? GOODRUM: (laughter) Jim Crow was alive and well for a long time after my school days. We -- and believe it or not, it’s one of those things that you were born into, and that was just a part of life, and, you know, we didn’t really make it -- any fuss about it, because the only thing you were going to do is dig your hole deeper, and you’re going to really be in trouble, so mind your own business and do what you’re supposed to do, and if you lived to be a good (inaudible), you didn’t come out with a lot of crap. You just had to do what was right, and don’t do anything that you were not supposed to do. CAIN: So do you -- GOODRUM: (inaudible) -- my father. WALKER-HARPS: And not supposed to do at that time from your elders meant what? GOODRUM: Well, first of all, you don’t talk back to adults. You do what you were told, and you had to have something to do to keep you busy. One of my dad’s favorite sayings was, “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.” So get busy. And then I think he produced two pretty fast sons. Sons, I’m trying to say. CAIN: So did you have any experiences living under Jim Crow, where you kind of felt like you were being mistreated, or did you have any experiences where you tried to get access to some kind of public facility, and as a result of Jim Crow laws, you weren’t able to? Were there experiences that you had that you might be able to share to give us some flavor about how it was at that time? GOODRUM: Well, the truth of the matter is, there were rules. There were rules that governed anybody, but then when it comes to certain things that were advantages and privileges that Caucasians were permitted, things that we would dare not even think about, because we know it was a cardinal sin to do so, and the only thing we were going to do is make that mess worse, so consequently, you just had to grin and bear. CAIN: Movie theaters? Did you go to the movies? GOODRUM: Yes. CAIN: And how did that work? GOODRUM: Well, they had their movies, and we had ours. CAIN: Separate facilities? GOODRUM: Definitely so. Definitely so. CAIN: Okay. GOODRUM: Water fountains, all that. Everything was separate. Separate but equal, Plessy v. Ferguson, was (inaudible) you heard of one time or another, but it’s just something that you’re born into, you’re reared in it, and you didn’t question it, you know. You just -- knowing if you deviate from the norm, then you’re up the proverbial creek. CRUIKSHANK: But you must have questioned it in your own head, didn’t you? GOODRUM: Well, thoughts that went through my mind, say, “Well, why do they have those good things that we don’t?” But then -- I’m going to say something, and -- my grandfather was my mother’s father, and I was in college, and he asked me to come out to -- he was in my grandmother’s house, and that Sunday, we got ready to eat, he said, “Boy, I’m going to talk to you.” He called all of us “boy.” And he said, “I want you to tell me the truth now don’t you tell me a lie.” “All right” (inaudible). And (inaudible) me. He says, “What do you think of n’s going to school with Caucasians?” I said, “Well, Pa” -- I’d been in the Air Force and all that stuff, you know, and -- I said, “Well, Papa, I don’t think anything is wrong with it. It’s just crazy, you know, to look at any other way.” Well, my granddaddy wanted to decapitate me. He said, “You know that is --” my granddaddy was a man who did not take any pushing around for anybody. He was a mean man. Nobody bothered him. My grandfather shot into a bill collector who came out to collect some money. He sent the money that he had, that he could afford to pay, to town by my grandmother, and they were going to rip my grandfather, and he shot at that man’s car. You know, they were going to do (inaudible), and he said, wait just a minute, I got it in here, went into the house and got his gun. When they pulled off, he shot. Shot that rear glass of. So what I’m going to show you, he was, he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t afraid of dying. CRUIKSHANK: How did he ever get away with that? GOODRUM: Huh? CRUIKSHANK: How did he ever get away with that? Wouldn’t that have been retribution? GOODRUM: I don’t know how Papa -- I don’t know how Papa got away with a lot of things. But everybody (inaudible). Oh, when Papa died, oh, his neighbor, a Caucasian, was at the funeral, and he had a word for Papa. He says, “I’ve known Uncle John a long time. He was a good, honest man. He didn’t take any foolishness from anybody. Leave Uncle John alone, and you had no trouble out of him, but if you ever wrong him, and you get ready to kill him.” He lived by that, and he never went to jail for it. Everybody knew, if you just leave him alone, and just let him do -- he wasn’t going to break the law and all that. He wasn’t going to steal, and he wasn’t going to have anybody do anything wrong, but don’t bother with he and his family. And if he owed you something, you can take it to the bank. CRUIKSHANK: But what I don’t understand is how it -- I mean, in everything I’ve seen, media, everything I’ve read about history, I mean, you have -- a black man tried to stand up for his rights, he would be lynched. I mean, how could that be? How could he get away with it, and stand up for his rights, and be okay? GOODRUM: Everybody knew that John Thomas Crawford was a man. If he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t go to your house. He wouldn’t drink water that came from your well. He wouldn’t do anything that had anything to do with you if he didn’t like you. So everybody knew that he minded his own business. And if something went wrong, somebody forced him to do it. I don’t ever -- I don’t remember ever hearing anybody said that Papa had gone to jail or had trouble with the law, because he minded his own business. But he -- (inaudible), you can take that to the bank. How he did -- (inaudible) we discussed that, why somebody didn’t shoot him or something, but he got away with it. CAIN: So he was a strong man and strong figure. GOODRUM: Oh, yeah, he was, he was. CAIN: But his mantra to you was, “Things are kind of the natural order of things and they should stay kind of like that.” GOODRUM: Right, right. CAIN: Roughly, when was he born, your grandfather? GOODRUM: I think it was ’88, 1987, ’89, somewhere about that -- CAIN: Eighteen? GOODRUM: -- 1887, ’89, yeah, thank you. CAIN: Okay, I’ve got you. GOODRUM: I think that’s what I remember. CAIN: So, at some point there was a -- I want to get to two things, one, I want to get to your college career a little bit, but I also want to get to the transition from -- in Griffin -- from a segregated kind of society to an integrated society, and the changes, and the adaptations that had to happen as you made that transition from the way things used to be to an integrated kind of setting. So if you could tell me, I guess, first, about -- you mentioned college, and leaving Fairmont, and going to college after that. Tell us about where you went and what you majored in. I know you came back and you’ve been a stellar person in the community. GOODRUM: Well, let me be totally upfront and honest with you. I was a pretty fair athlete, and things worked quite well for me athletically, and then after a period of time, other things kind of got in the way a little bit, and not that my daddy knew that, but I didn’t put the emphasis I should have on my books. I was good, student, at one time, but then when it came time for me to go to college, I was kind of scared, because I put the athletics ahead of academics. And consequently, I was given the offers to play on scholarship. As a matter -- given a scholarship to play football, I’m trying to say. And Mr. Daniel, who was principal of one of the schools that we played at one time, brought this doctor to me who promised to pay my way to college if I were to go Moorehouse College and play football, but I had gotten a big head with this kind of thing, and I was afraid to even think about it, and I was -- pretty stiff requirements (inaudible). So I had to kind of really, really take a real good look at myself and what I -- how I had misused some real great opportunities I had. So the only way for me to try to redeem myself was to join the Air Force. So I joined the Air Force, which was really, truly -- I tell people, I’ve been to college twice. I went in the armed forces, and then, after I completed my -- I took them courses when I was in the Air Force, but I wouldn’t take any credit, because I told people, hey, when I go to college, I want to start anew. I want everything to come to (inaudible). I don’t want anything. So incidentally, that worked out quite well for me. And I ran across some people who very, very instrumental -- and this is a long way from Griffin, Georgia, because some of the people that helped me so much were Caucasians. And as a matter of fact, L.C. (Healthlaw?), tall guy, and he said -- he called me George, so, for Georgia. “George?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “What do you--” I would talk about when I get out. I said, “Well, think I can get out and go back down home and get, well, a job, and, you know, whatever going to do.” He said, “Well, what are you going to do about a job?” I said, “Well, I’ll just go get a job.” He said, “Let me tell you something. You’d be a sore, sore fool to go back down south--” and this was in the state of New York, at Stewart Air Force Base. “If you go back down south and don’t have -- the number one thing on your list is education, you’d be a fool as a black man.” He said, “Look, a white man from Alabama, I’m telling you this, because you and I know what you’ve been through.” So that put me under a different mindset, and things just worked better from that, you know. And I had some real good breaks. People saw that I was really trying, so consequently, it worked out quite well for me. But one thing that I would say that molded my determination more than anything else: there were two fellows that I thought they were college grads, and (inaudible) had friends in high school, and I was talking with these fellows, and they were in the Air Force too. And I said, “Hey, where’d you guys go to college?” And they both looked at me and laughed. “What’s funny?” He says, “Us, go to college? We’re high school dropouts.” Wow. And I talked to them, and I said, “Look. You guys mind if I kind of join the tour for a little bit and see what you guys are doing?” They said, “Well, tell you what. If you’re willing to do what we do, okay. But if not, you can’t.” “So what have I got to do?” “You got to read a book a week. You even drink one beer (inaudible) drink one beer, and that’s all you can have during that week. But you have to share the contents of the book that you read. And if you want to do what we do, the way we do it, then that’s fine.” Those guys put my mind on the right track. And I tell you what, things just got better and better and better from there. CRUIKSHANK: What years were those? GOODRUM: Nineteen fifty, ’51. Stewart Air Force Base, Newburgh, New York. It was about 12, 15 miles from the West Point Academy. CAIN: Were you involved in Korea in any way? GOODRUM: In Korea? CAIN: Yeah. GOODRUM: I spent 11 months, 11 days in Korea, from December of ’53 to November, eleven months, eleven days. Eleven months, eleven days in ’54. I rotated to the States in ’54. I went to Mitchel Air Force Base at that time. That’s where I did my last seven months, and I got out of there and went to Fort Valley State, and I made up my mind as I went to Fort Valley, before I went to Fort Valley, rather, that I didn’t want to go to a big school, because I had been in New York. I was in New York, Stewart Air Force Base, in New York, Mitchel. And I had all of these fantasies, things, getting in the way, what have you. I want to go to Fort Valley State and crunch down there for very few distractions, or what have you, and I went down, and whoom, I made the honor roll, things just went well. Went quite well. CAIN: So after Fort Valley State... GOODRUM: Fort Valley State? CAIN: Mm-hm. GOODRUM: Well, I didn’t really go into -- for graduate -- working all right then, because I’d married, and when I went to school, that little gal that I’d been in love with all those years, well, we got married. No children, but we both went to college, and I had to work my fingers to the bones, but I went down to Fort Valley. She went, because she was a much better student in high school than I was, and -- I made three B’s and an A when I got my first grades, and she said, “What were your grades?” and I said, “Three B’s, an A.” “Three B’s and an A?” (laughter). I could breeze through school with three B’s and an A. But she had difficulty keeping up with me, though. I was not the same little wild buck, you know, that she had known before. So the thing just went well, and we got on through college, and I taught (Joe’s County?) for six years, then (Caleb?) High School in Gray, Georgia, and the basketball season of 1964, I was coaching basketball -- I was head basketball coach at the (inaudible). And Philip Head, Philip who, Philip Hood? There was a Philip Head in Griffin, too. But Philip Hood saw my team perform in a tournament, and he came, and we’ve known each other all of our lives. He said, “Tell me.” (inaudible) and get back on (inaudible) and get a job there. He said, “Well if I can help you get your job, will you come back?” He said, “We need you in Griffin.” “Okay.” So I left Gray in 1965, came back to Griffin, and been here ever since. And that little gal went right along with me. (laughter) CAIN: So when you came back to Griffin, you had a job. GOODRUM: Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. CAIN: And what was the job? GOODRUM: Well, I was teaching PE, and driver’s ed, and this kind of thing, but I had really done my work and all, what have you, so I was firmly set for that, you know, and we... I stayed at Fairmont for five years, and then, (inaudible) we consolidated after that. CAIN: So that was from ’64 to ’69 or something like that? GOODRUM: Well, the school year ’70, ’71, I left Caleb High to come to Fairmont, and then I stayed there until ’70. CAIN: So you were at the forefront of much of the change from Fairmont to Griffin High, is that right? GOODRUM: Smack dab in the middle of it. CAIN: Tell us about that. GOODRUM: Well, during the process of making the transition, doing all of the things, school colors and what have you, who was going to be coaching for sports and what have you, the kids who were working as -- young people who were working on that, Caucasian and African American, they kind of got in a little conflict about school colors and this kind of thing, and so they had a lot of difference. And God knows, this is the truth. I had asked for a raise because the difference in pay in African American coaches and the Caucasian coaches. So I went over to the superintendent’s office and asked Mr. Christian about that. So the proposition was, in order for me to get the raise, I could coach at one school and work at the other. We would (inaudible). I didn’t want to do that. So I told Mr. Christian that that wouldn’t work, because I’ve got two bosses, the one who is in charge of academics, he’s (inaudible) that part of it, though, that was in charge of athletics (inaudible) that part of it. I might have a conflict, so I will not do that. So anyway, then Mr. Christian told them that he -- them being the students, the athletes said, well, we better bring him over to Griffin High in order for him to get the raise in pay. So then the children, the young people, didn’t like that. So from that sprung this dissention. Not anything real bad, but they didn’t like the idea of them taking sort of (inaudible) their best coach and sending him to Griffin High. I agreed, though, just to hold off for it, and they would take care of it next year. So somehow or another, they got into school colors and all these kind of things, and someone over their head kind of had some word, and the African American children felt that they were not being treated fairly, so they came back to school and spread the word to what had transpired, then they just walked out (inaudible). And I was there in the gym, and I said, “I’m not getting involved in all that mess, because it’s going to be the biggest mess I’ve ever heard of in my life. I want nothing to do with it.” So I went back to the gym, locked the door, and all the kids were gone. They had gone over to the other high school. Some (inaudible). No, I’m not going, I’m not going. But all the sudden it hit me, boom, you better go. So I ran outside, jumped in my car, and I got there just about the same time they did, and as I walked up the steps, Mr. Christian, who was the superintendent, he said, “Coach Goodrum! Oh, that’s Coach Goodrum! Coach Goodrum out there! Come up here.” Well, I had to go up on the stage, and that proved to be one of the best things I’d ever done when I got over there. Must’ve (inaudible) kind of valued my opinion, how I felt about things, and consequently, he (inaudible) didn’t let me have my way, but he kind of let me, you know, have (inaudible) and things, and he was honest with me about what they -- I had been the head track coach at Fairmont, and I won the -- no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Track was at Griffin High. Baseball. The head baseball coach. And you know, I wanted to be the baseball coach at Griffin High, too (inaudible), and they were just playing out front (inaudible) said, “Look, we’ve got to have a black in charge of something.” And the track team was the worst sport they had at River High. So we’re going to make you the track coach. What was I going to tell them? Give me the money I’d asked for. Well, but I didn’t like it, and I said, well, this thing is going to pan out for me, it’s going to pan out. I started (inaudible) to work, and I worked every hands -- I mean, I worked, I worked. The next seven year span, I won four regional championships and two state championships. That was the most productive program in the whole athletic program. And it was all because Mr. Christian’s twist my arm and said, “We’re going to make you the head track coach.” None of the other teams had anything comparable to that. CAIN: You know, but you bring up a great issue, and that is leadership during the transition, and how personnel were chosen to take leadership in various areas, and how political it was, whether there were racial implications about the choices, those kinds of things, who was appointed -- you’re in an integrated situation, you’ve got coaches coming from Fairmont, you’ve got teachers coming from Fairmont, you’ve got teachers at Griffin High, you’ve got teachers, athletic personnel at Griffin High, you’ve got administrators at both of those schools. Who gets what leadership position, how that was determined? GOODRUM: Well, I don’t think I was as good as people said I was, but I had a way with the kids, you know, and I didn’t play with them and all that, I was family to them. But hey, I had a life philosophy. People might outplay us, but they won’t outwork us. We’re going to be as prepared as anybody (inaudible) hit whatever activity we’re in. They might beat us, but hey, they won’t put any more into it than we will. And you might not believe this, some of the kids kid me -- we’re men now. They kid me, because we had this embankment. We were going up the bank. We’d go up the bank and we’d do that every day. Every day, for conditioning. And those fellows, some of them thank me right today for doing that. It was all because, hey, you don’t outwork us. If you’ve got more building we can’t -- we can’t do a thing about that. But we will work with the best of them, and if I get a little kick out of anything, it’s having the boys just tell me that “You’re a crazy old man” or “You made us (inaudible).” I said, “But it worked. It worked.” CAIN: Well, because of your success and your leadership, it paved the way for other folks to be able to come behind you and get those kinds of positions, I assume. GOODRUM: You know, this is probably irrelevant to this whole thing, but I went to my daddy, and I asked him about me playing football, and he said, “Boy, I don’t know a thing about football.” He said, “You -- those are my boys,” and he said, “If something happened to me, somebody got to look out for your mother and your brother.” He said, “If you can find you a job that will let you play football and go to school -- go to school and play football, and that’ll be fine, that’ll be fine.” He said, “But you’ve got to go to school, because you’ve got to know how to make a dollar sign. Something happen to me, you’re going to be up the creek.” So this is the gospel truth if I’ve ever told it in my life. A few days after that happened, a man named (H.T. Stafford?), Caucasian, who was in charge of the (Roxy?) and the Imperial Theater, and I heard that Mr. Stafford had a vacancy as is for a janitor at the Roxy Theater. I went to ask him about it. He knew I played football and all that, or I would play football, that was then. And he said, “Johnny,” he said, “now, I’m assuming you want the job so you can play football.” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “Okay, now, let me tell you something. Now you remember our agreement. As long as you go to school and you pass, you can have this job, but the day you come up and tell me that you want to go full-time as a janitor, and quit school, I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t want to see you anymore. That’s it.” “Yes, sir, I understand.” That same man, H. T. Stafford, one summer, he came -- Piggly Wiggly’s right beside where the Imperial Theater was, and I had gone and bought, I bought a -- I think a double cola, some big drink, I bought baloney, a banana, whole lot of stuff, and Mr. Stafford came in, and he says, “Johnny, who’s going to eat all that food?” I said, “I am.” “Do you eat like that every day?” “I do.” So that’s crazy. He says, “Tomorrow, you don’t buy your lunch. I’m buying you lunch.” He said, “You don’t eat until I get here.” So the next day, he came in, he went next door to Piggly Wiggly’s, he bought two coca-colas, and two loaves of (Besserall?) bread. We went back to the theater, he went up in his office, took the bread, pushed it together, opened the bag, opened the drink, saw it and said, “Let’s eat.” We ate. Okay, he says, “This is what I want you to do every day. You’re eating more money than you’re making. You eat up all your money. That’s crazy.” All right, the same man started going to my football games, you know. He knew more football than my football coaches, to tell you the truth. He did. And he called me up to the office one day. “Johnny?” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “You ever had a bank account?” “No, sir.” He says, “Let me ask you something. Would you like to have one?” I said, “Well, I wouldn’t mind.” He said, “Well, we’ll start you one,” he said, “and get this situation set up for you, and I’ll take money from your check, put it into the bank for you every week.” And this is the gospel truth if I ever told it in my life. That man taught me the value of a dollar. Now, he was such a good man. That much is the truth. That man was in some ways as close to me as my daddy, and he would fuss at me. He’d never curse, but if he saw me doing something he thought was wrong, but he would chew my rear end up one side and down the other until that man made me -- now, my dad was a real biggie, but as far as teaching me about money and how to work with people and how to get the best out of anything you do was done for me by H. T. Stafford. And he was from Alabama too, by the way, but he was a dang good man. Good man. WALKER-HARPS: A. T. what? The last name. GOODRUM: H. T. Stafford. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, H. T. Stafford. GOODRUM: H. T. Stafford. He was a good man. And I tell you what. I wish I could have kept track with him to let him see how the things that he did for me paid off for me. He was a fine man. Fine man. CAIN: I know you passed it forward to other people, which is what you do. WALKER-HARPS: In general, what was the economy like as you grew up for African Americans in Griffin? GOODRUM: Well, people were doing domestic work. Can’t remember what my mom made a day, I mean a week. Wasn’t very much. Daddy worked at the mill, so they had (inaudible) salaries at the mill, and well, Daddy supplemented his income, his salary by -- they called them cesspool during that time, septic tanks. And Daddy and his buddy on the job (inaudible) would dig septic tanks after they’d get off from the mill in the evening. Dad would go to work in the mornings, and he’d come back by the house after he’d clean up the three offices, and he’d work from then, he’d go to the mill and work. So, well... My brother and I would always talk to him about that. WALKER-HARPS: Who were the -- were there many African American entrepreneurs? I know we talked earlier about John Simmons -- or black businessmen, or professional blacks who were very, very active in the community? GOODRUM: The Head brothers, you know, Raymond, oldest, and Phillip, their father, who owned (Paytonville Pressing?) Club and several houses throughout the city, and they had a lot going for them, and more so than the average Afro-American, because they owned properties or what have you, and they had avenues that opened up for them that weren’t necessarily open for the average African American. There weren’t too much poverty happening along the socioeconomic lines. WALKER-HARPS: Not much black ownership, excluding all service industries, like barber shops, and gift shops, and funeral homes, things that would apply specifically to African Americans. GOODRUM: Mr. (Hector?) had (Please You Cleaners?), the Heads had Clean Well, John Summers had the (inaudible), there was several blacks that were with small businesses, but nothing really -- (A. C. Turnstone?). He was the wealthiest African American in Spalding County. As a matter of fact, he was the head man of... WALKER-HARPS: Atlantic Alive? GOODRUM: No, no, no. I’m trying to think of... who’s he? The political -- what are they -- political... WALKER-HARPS: Oh, the Republicans? GOODRUM: Yeah, he was the head Republican. Mr. Turnstone walked in -- the head of the Republican Party, and they took him down when he was in there. He was the head for a long time. CAIN: Say that name again. GOODRUM: Oh, oh, oh, oh. A. C. Turnstone. CAIN: Turnstone, got you. GOODRUM: Turnstone. You know Frank Turnstone? You remember Frank? CAIN: I’ve heard of him. GOODRUM: But Mr. Turnstone had major, major bucks. Big, big money. CAIN: What about grocery stores? Did you get food through grocery stores, were there gardens in backyards? GOODRUM: Well, you had to have a garden in the back yard, but -- John Simmons, you know where John Simmons used to run the store? WALKER-HARPS: Yes. GOODRUM: Okay, that was a -- can’t think for the man’s name now -- but anyway, he had a nice store there. Ms. (inaudible) (Lovett?) had a little (inaudible) (Psalm?) Street. The Matthews had one, or somewhere -- I didn’t go to South Side too much, but there were black businesses, but there weren’t that much, but... The store where Simmons was, that man had a pretty nice business. And that was several little stores. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, the gentleman on Solomon Street, oh, gosh, on the corner of Solomon and -- GOODRUM: Are you talking about (Snow?)? WALKER-HARPS: Snow, and... GOODRUM: But that -- what am I saying -- Pete Lovett, Mr. Pete Lovett had that originally. I’m sorry. WALKER-HARPS: Snow and there was another gentleman everybody knew here. Flosses -- GOODRUM: Oh, Ed Farmville. WALKER-HARPS: Ed Farmville. GOODRUM: Oh, that’s right, that was a service station on the corner of Fourth and East Sullivan. You’re right. That’s an awful lot to be pushing it so much. (laughter) WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, there are some names that ring true that were out there in 1961 when I came to Griffin. Now, tell us a little bit about your principalship. You did get to be a principal during the transitional period. GOODRUM: Oh, yes, yes, yes. I don’t know. I guess my going into the armed forces kind of gave me a chance to really see different people when they would handle people. And I learned a lot from that, so as a result, I never really had any real major problems with students. Somehow or another, I impressed people like Mr. Christian and the rest of them, so I didn’t apply for a principalship, to tell you the truth. It was something that was just volunteered -- they voluntarily did for me, you know, and they saw something in me I guess I didn’t see in myself. WALKER-HARPS: Did you ever get to visit [Mollett’s] gym? Were you ever behind Mollett’s gym? I understand that was an interesting place to be. And the woodshed... GOODRUM: Well, that was the only gym... Or were you talking about something else? (laughter) WALKER-HARPS: There (inaudible) said there was one principal who had a record of taking you to the woodshed. I don’t remember exactly his name, but... And nobody wanted to go to Mollett’s gym, because usually, that’s where things happened. GOODRUM: Well, Mr. Mollett left before I got there, and the county built the addition to Fairmont, so we used to use Mollett’s gym, but we had our own gym, so there was no need to go over there. WALKER-HARPS: Was Mr. Mollett financially a flaunt, you might say, or he build the gym out of necessity. GOODRUM: He build the gym as a moneymaking project. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, okay. GOODRUM: See, we didn’t have a gym, and most of the African American schools had basketball, far and near. We played our basketball games outdoors, and Mr. Mollett built that gym there. So we were able to play basketball inside because of Mr. Mollett’s gym. So he made money on that thing. CAIN: What year was that? GOODRUM: Now, that was done when I was -- before I got big enough to be all concerned about that. But it was that -- I’m not sure what year it was. But it was there for a good while. CAIN: I’ve often heard about festive parades and that kind of thing in Griffin during that period of time. Bands and -- we were talking about majorettes before. What was that whole thing like, and how did that -- how did the community receive that kind of festive activity? GOODRUM: Well, originally we used to -- we. The principal would get bands to come out of Atlanta for more of the many schools in Atlanta that had bands, and they would pay them to come down and perform at halftime and march, going over to the stadium and what have you, and going back to the (inaudible) I was talking about a little while ago, (Gene?) -- they used to parade over at Fairmont School all the way over to Memorial Park, and where people would be parked, we used to stand on a long road. Well, I’d never get to see any of that when I was playing football because, you know, I was with the team. But they would have a big, big crowd, and people would just have a ball. And on the Friday before the game, they would play through town, and they would just have one heck of a time, you know. I’ve talked a lot and said little. Has anybody got any other questions? WALKER-HARPS: You’ve said a lot. CRUIKSHANK: So overall, what are your feelings about integration? Was there -- was it all good? Was it... what were the bad aspects to it, or were there bad aspects to it? GOODRUM: You mean as far as experiencing it, doing the transition... CRUIKSHANK: Yeah, mm-hm. GOODRUM: Well, you know, without the efforts of good Caucasians, that situation would have been a real ugly one. But as always, there are always those persons whose heart’s in the right place, and we had a lot of people whose hearts were in the right places. And they stepped in when they really had to, you know. And the transition in Griffin, Spalding County, was -- I think it was kind of smoothly done, and I -- I’m trying to think of (inaudible) black coach’s name now -- Max. Well, (Max Dowells?) was the coach during that time. And I remember vividly when there was a little ruckus, kind of blew up between the football players, African American and Caucasians, and Max got everybody together, settled down, and he says, “Listen. I want everybody to know one thing. I ain’t got no white football players. I ain’t got no black football players. I got football players. Now, if you don’t like that, get the crap out of here. I got football players.” Something came up, and somebody was mouthing. Coach called us back in here again, and he says, “Listen. I’m going to tell you something. I’m going to tell you this one time. And this will go over you people, your dad’s a doctor, what have you, and those of you who’s daddy are just plain old working folks. If I have to tell you this again (inaudible) that’s it.” See, Max Dowells was a strong man. I’m going to tell you something. Max Dowells never let a boy get hurt, going to bed at night, without him going to that boy’s house and taking care of him. That’s the kind of man he was. Max -- I’m sorry about that. Max, he took real good care of us. But he didn’t take any jump, now. He was -- he demanded a lot, but he’d give a lot too. He was one heck of a man, one heck of a man. WALKER-HARPS: Sounds like you had some interesting experiences with very important and influential men in your life -- GOODRUM: Oh, there’s no doubt about that -- WALKER-HARPS: -- to shape you to what you are today. CRUIKSHANK: But I was kind of curious, one day, a few months ago, I was working away in my office, and this former professor came up to me. He used to work here. (Orwell Lindstrom?). And he said, “You need to interview this guy, this Mr. Goodrum.” He said, “We’re good friends. We go out and have a coffee every day, and we’re talking, and talking, and we’re talking about the internet, and he said, and he’s saying that you were talking about, “Oh, you’d never find your name in the internet,” so they typed in -- I guess you guys typed in your name, and up came this stuff about Fairmont High School. So tell me, how did that relationship get started there? I mean, it sounds like it’s pretty close. GOODRUM: Well, we are, we are. Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We work good together. He didn’t come this morning, so we’ve got to boot him for that. But, you know, I don’t really know how it got started. CRUIKSHANK: Well, how long has it been? How long have you been buddy-buddy. GOODRUM: A good while. CRUIKSHANK: Long time, mm-hmm, years and years. Well, how did you meet? He’s a professor here, I think. GOODRUM: Yeah, he is. How did we meet? Something... It was something concerning race. We met at Saint Phillip Church, and I can’t remember just... Just what it was that had transpired, but Orville and I was just casual acquaintances at that time, and that night, Orville came to the meeting, and some reason or another, we just kind of hit it off. But I can’t remember exactly what happened originally. But he’s a super guy. A super guy. If he tells you something, you can take it to the bank. CRUIKSHANK: Well, he was... He said you have some great, great stories about being on the bus back from New York or something and having to take a back seat, or... Do you remember stories like that? GOODRUM: Okay, (inaudible) talk about that. You know, if you’re in the Air Force and -- for planes going in the air -- like, I was coming to Griffin from New York. Okay, so I went down and put my name in, and, what you call, hitch and a hop, wanted a ride, in other words, on the plane. And we flew from New York to Birmingham -- no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Yeah, we did fly to Birmingham. And we got off the plane, and we went down to the bus terminal, and these guys -- there were five of us -- and I was the only African American. And we had worked for the same (inaudible), we flew down on the same plane, and these were people that I worked with and all that every day. So when we get to Birmingham, we walk in the door, and everybody looked at me, and I went, “Well, what’s going on?” And I was all eyes. “What in the world is happening?” Now, I’d been away from joining that long, but, now, I’m with these same guys I’m working with, I’m eating with every day, and then this guy -- “Bus is now leaving for Birmingham.” Oh, man, I’m in Alabama, and I mean -- I ran (laughter) -- I ran down there, thinking, “What if somebody’s (inaudible)?” But I got out, and then I got to the halfway house. It was raining, cold, and I went -- the little -- went to the little place in back, where the little hole is, let us go back there, and then be accommodated. And then I -- they had closed that place up. So I went back up front, and me and my little bag, I stepped inside the door. I wasn’t trying to get (inaudible) the people, but I was trying to get out of the rain and all. And the man came over and says, “Hey, out.” So another gentleman stood up and said, “Hey, that guy’s in uniform.” Guy says, “I don’t care what he got on. He’d better get his black you-know-what out of here,” you know. So I left -- I knew that wasn’t a good sign, so I left. And a guy who’s -- offered to bring me to Griffin, driving the bus, he said, come on, get in here.” He said, “Where are you going?” I said, “Griffin.” “Get in, get in the truck.” He says, “It’s a little out of my way, but I just can’t stand that. I’ll take you to Griffin.” I said, “No, sir, I appreciate that, but I wouldn’t put you out of the way that much. It’s not that bad.” Got on the bus. And we’d, I guess, gone five, ten miles, stopped another place. Lady got on the bus, and she’s all (inaudible), they made me give her my seat. (laughter) Yeah, that happened, that’s... But (both?) things happen. But I’m going to tell you one little... I was in New York, and I hadn’t been in New York but a couple, three weeks, and this lady got on the bus, and there were all kind of(inaudible), and she was a Caucasian, and boy, that was a hard (inaudible) for me to sit there. I started to get up, but I said, no, and nobody even noticed that. But it was just... It was just a big change in the way things worked. WALKER-HARPS: Was that before or after the (Mule Hole?) was a significant feature in Griffin? GOODRUM: Oh, well, see, none of that happened in Griffin. What I’m taking about happened -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes, I know, but the Mule Hole was one example of the same kind of thing there in Griffin. GOODRUM: I know, I know. But the only thing I ever did with the new hole was pass it. I never went in the Mule Hole. They said they didn’t have any concrete, there was no floor, it was just a dirt floor in there. I never did go in that. WALKER-HARPS: I may be the only one who has heard of the Mule Hole. CAIN: I was going to ask what the Mule Hole was. GOODRUM: It was a place where Mr. Charlie would let you go in and spend your dollars and buy his beer and that kind of stuff, but there was no place for you to sit, and it was just (inaudible) dirt flooring. CAIN: So it was like a little bit of a bar, a little bit of a -- GOODRUM: Yeah, it was, but -- there was a Caucasian portion of it out front, and you go around -- CAIN: To the back. GOODRUM: -- to the back, and you go in there, yeah, and -- I’d never go in there. CAIN: You could buy, but you couldn’t stay? GOODRUM: Oh, you can stay in there (inaudible) didn’t stand up in that dirt. That’s right. You know where the old East Street church is in downtown Griffin? CAIN: Mm-hm. GOODRUM: All right. Just across the street from Main Street, if you’re looking across in the -- that building on the other side of there, that was new.. WALKER-HARPS: That was a site for most African American businesses, and I understand that, as far as the community was concerned, that was a kind of booming area. GOODRUM: Well, but you see, Raymond (Head and those?) had -- WALKER-HARPS: Triple-H and... GOODRUM: Triple-H and -- WALKER-HARPS: Pressing Club... GOODRUM: Let me see, they had the Pressing Club, Triple-H, then there was a shoe shine things, and now... Mr. Hector had -- that was before he moved (inaudible) back on the other -- whole other end, and then there was several (inaudible) too in the same area. Griffin is... it’s come a long way. We’ve still got a long way to go, but, you know. Thanks again, Pa. CRUIKSHANK: Well, I guess we can stop here. Anything else that you wanted to say, anything you wanted to talk about before we close here? GOODRUM: Well, I hope I wasn’t a complete bore to you people today, and will appreciate the invitation, and, you know, keep up the good work. CAIN: For my part, I can say it was very, very interesting, and we appreciate you coming and sharing with us. It’s something that will be archived and folks 50 years from now, you know, how long, will be able to listen to it and get perspective on how things were. GOODRUM: Thank you, thank you. CRUIKSHANK: Thank you. WALKER-HARPS: Thank you, and thank you to the staff who gives its time so graciously to come and do this. We do appreciate it. CAIN: You all have mentioned Otis Head more than -- END OF AUDIO FILE
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
RBRL418GAA-002.xml
RBRL418GAA-002.xml
http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
74 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Griffin, Georgia
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Johnny Goodrum, February 10, 2016
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA-002
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Johnny Goodrum
John Cruickshank
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
Segregation
African American veterans
School integration
African American teachers
United States--Veterans
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-10
Description
An account of the resource
Johnny Goodrum was born in Griffin-Spalding County in Georgia during the years of segregation. As a child, Goodrum attended multiple schools in the area including Broad Street School, Cabin Creek Elementary and Fairmont High School. Goodrum later worked in the Air Force, and attended Fort Valley State University. In this interview, Goodrum discusses his childhood in Griffin, Georgia, his experience in the Air Force, integration, and the effects of Jim Crow.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4 2019-08-30 Interview with Larry Caldwell, August 30, 2019 RBRL418GAA-021 102 minutes RBRL418GAA Griffin African American Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Larry Caldwell Art Cain John Cruickshank Be-Atrice Cunningham Rich Braman Jewel Walker-Harps 1:|16(4)|26(49)|26(184)|26(349)|26(524)|26(736)|26(949)|30(63)|34(145)|34(333)|38(41)|42(19)|42(206)|42(370)|42(542)|42(713)|42(911)|42(1049)|42(1192)|42(1338)|42(1489)|42(1663)|42(1811)|42(1963)|44(20)|50(134)|50(368)|62(24)|62(152)|70(92)|70(275)|70(466)|70(618)|70(810)|72(10)|78(103)|78(269)|80(25)|82(151)|86(103)|86(252)|86(434)|86(596)|92(22)|102(96)|102(283)|106(4)|106(177)|106(394)|108(14)|114(133)|114(289)|114(459)|114(621)|114(809)|118(36)|126(63)|132(18)|134(91)|134(245)|134(414)|134(603)|134(755)|138(150)|138(332)|142(50)|148(149)|152(76)|152(215)|152(378)|152(552)|152(710)|160(147)|160(305)|160(513)|160(630)|160(766)|160(917)|160(1097)|172(92)|172(217)|172(425)|172(631)|172(768)|180(16)|188(8)|192(153)|192(331)|192(512)|192(671)|192(881)|192(1104)|200(117)|200(288)|200(452)|200(624)|212(8)|212(189)|212(421)|214(65)|240(14) 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_2rov2udm& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true& ; & ; wid=1_0653csy2" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; sandbox=" ; allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; 99 Growing up in Springfield Well I was raised up right here... Caldwell talks about his childhood growing up in Springfield, Georgia. Caldwell describes the poverty of his neighborhood, as he grew up in a segregated African American community. Caldwell relates how his father provided food for his family as a child. farming ; mill ; poverty 561 Life as a golf caddie When the crop got ready, when the hogs... Caldwell talks about the community of his hometown, Springfield. Caldwell relates his experience as a golf caddie and talks about one of his friends, Jim Cercy. Caldwell explains how his understanding of World War II influenced the way he saw himself in regards to the daily racism he encountered. caddie ; Jim Cercy ; racism ; Springfield ; World War II 1021 After Vietnam I'd join the Marine Corp., plus I told... Caldwell talks about his time serving in Vietnam, and how his experience brought insight after returning home during the Civil Rights Movement. Caldwell explains how he went to Griffin Technical Institute and worked in automobile repair and welding, and how he eventually came to work at General Motors. Civil Rights Movement ; General Motors ; Griffin Technical Institute ; Vietnam 1462 Effects of the Vietnam War And I tell them, how I did it... Caldwell talks about how once he got out of the Marine Corps he worked to help young men freshly out of the Marines get jobs. Caldwell shares stories about the people who influenced him as a young man, including some of the teachers he had. Caldwell describes the ways in which the Vietnam War mentally effected his emotional state, as well as that of community members returning from war. Caldwell explains how he dealt with his PTSD following the war. General Motors ; Griffin Tech ; Joe Baker ; post-traumatic stress disorder ; Vietnam War ; William Walker 1885 Teachers and the Griffin Community We were partying so hard at the time... Caldwell talks about how he decided to join his community's church. Caldwell describes the impact teachers had on his upbringing as a kid. Caldwell shares stories about his children, Ophelia and Demarcus. Caldwell talks about raising his grandson. church ; Demarcus Caldwell ; Just Wings ; Ophelia Caldwell ; Savannah State University 2346 Family Ophelia's oldest boy, the one... Caldwell describes the rest of his family. Caldwell talks about his love for his family, and the way his upbringing with his mother influenced his parenting style. Ophelia Caldwell 2759 Grandchildren and family history Do what you can to help... Caldwell talks about the ways in which he helps take care of his family. Caldwell explains how his father influenced the way that he raises his own children. Caldwell relates stories of his grandfather and how he made money making syrup and bootleg whiskey as opposed to accepting the life of a sharecropper. children ; church ; plantation 3176 Caldwell's grandfather (cont. ) / The Civil Rights Movement She wouldn't let him buy land... Caldwell describes his grandfather and the uses of syrup during his childhood. Caldwell recalls the impact that the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. had on his decision to join the Civil Rights Movement. Civil Rights Movement ; Griffin High School ; integration ; segregation ; syrup 3614 Civil Rights Movement (cont.) / The Griffin Pool They would tell us to go... Caldwell talks about resistance methods used by Civil Rights activists in Griffin, Georgia shortly after the death of Martin Luther King. Caldwell shares stories about the actions some members of the white community would take to stop integration. Caldwell relates a story about a pool in Griffin. Civil Rights Movement ; segregation 4087 Griffin High School integration When we was in school... Caldwell talks about the integration of Griffin High School, especially the integration of the football team. Caldwell explains how many black students were not able to play on the football team after integration. Caldwell relates how the integration of football teams resulted in better performance across many universities. Alabama State University ; football ; Griffin Eagles ; Griffin High School 4511 Racism and Discrimination growing up Everybody knew Mahalia... Caldwell talks about the most influential moments in his life concerning the civil rights movement. Caldwell discusses the hate taught through the racism he often encountered growing up. Mahalia Jackson ; Marine Corps ; racism 4924 Racism and Discrimination (cont.) I said, 'You taught her that, mam...' Caldwell shares his belief as to the origin of racism in the United States. Caldwell explains how he was often discriminated against by police as a child. Caldwell recalls how black police officers were not allowed to arrest white people shortly after integration. discrimination ; police ; racism ; Sam Bass 5390 Inclusion and the Civil Rights Movement All of them wasn't like that... Caldwell talks about some of the positive experiences he had with white people growing up, and the importance of white people in the Civil Rights Movement. Caldwell talks about the importance of taking care of others in the community. Civil Rights Movement ; discrimination ; religion 5802 Friendships (cont.) / Concluding thoughts Do you have anything else you... Caldwell talks about some of the white friends he had growing up, and the ways they defied the discriminatory precedent. Caldwell shares some of his experiences as a kid growing up in the Griffin community. friendship Oral history RBRL418GAA-021_Caldwell ART CAIN: We are here at the University of Georgia on August the 30th, 2018 in our oral history project. We have several folks who are here who will be interviewers, and we will have the privilege of interviewing -- JEWEL WALKER-HARPS: Mr. Larry Caldwell. CAIN: Mr. Larry Caldwell. LARRY CALDWELL: Yeah, Caldwell. CAIN: We will first introduce each of the interviewers and then let Mr. Caldwell start to tell us a little bit about himself. My name’s Art Cain. I’m with the Office of Continuing Education here on the University of Georgia campus. JOHN CRUICKSHANK: I’m John Cruickshank, and I’m the librarian here at the Griffin campus of UGA. BE-ATRICE CUNNINGHAM: I’m Be-Atrice Cunningham. I’m a project manager in the assistant provost’s office here at the University of Georgia, Griffin campus. RICHIE BRAMAN: I’m Richie Braman. I’m an administrator and developer with the Center for Urban Agriculture. WALKER-HARPS: I’m Jewel Walker-Harps, president of the Griffin branch NAACP, and a lifelong friend of Larry Caldwell. CUNNINGHAM: Mr. Caldwell, thank you so much for being with us today. CALDWELL: You’re welcome. You’re welcome. I’ve been looking forward to this. I’ve been notified about this weeks ago, and we were just trying to get a date and a time set up. Believe me ; I’m busy too. CUNNINGHAM: (laughs) Well, we are so glad to have you. So we’re going to start off by you just telling us a little bit about your background, your family background. CALDWELL: When I was raised up right here on the south side of town, in which is called Spring Hill, and that side of town was beyond poverty. That’s where I was raised up at. Our streets probably were the last streets in Griffin that they actually paved. Spring Hill and Boyds Row were dirt streets because they were black neighborhoods. I could go up to the road one block, and (inaudible) the cannery. When we were little kids, we got skates for Christmas. We had to go up the street just one block away because the cannery was there, and that’s where we skated at because it was concrete. That’s as far as that went because the cannery. You understand how deep (inaudible) is? That was on concrete. That’s about what it was like when we was coming up in my neighborhood as a young boy. And my daddy, he worked at Dundee Number One for 44 years. And after 44 years, his retirement was 44 dollars a month because the negroes weren’t allowed unions inside the cotton mills. Back in the ’50s and ’60s, no way there’s going to get a union in the cotton mill. They didn’t know the scale of wages they were making, and they didn’t understand at that time that they didn’t have benefits at all. He just had a job. When I was a young boy, I had to work. My daddy got me a job at the mill -- me and my brother. We worked at the mill 40 hours. The wages back then was a dollar and a quarter an hour. For one-week wages, 40 hours, I brought home 40 dollars because the quarter was taken out in social security and taxes. I only got a dollar of it. Every week, my check was 40 dollars. And I knew as a young boy then, I got to -- something got to be better for me. Daddy drove truck up there all them years, and that’s all he got: 44 dollars a month for 44 years. And the only way we survived, my daddy was a farmer. On each side of my house on Spring Hill where we lived, this man would come around during the spring of the year with his mule and his wagon. And he would plow up the yards on both sides of the house, and that’s where Daddy had his garden. We didn’t have any money, but we had plenty to eat because he raised it. In our backyard, it was a big tree back there. Daddy would raise so many onions, he would line them up around that tree and that’s where they hung. We had a smokehouse full of meat because he cured hogs, and as a young boy, I could never understand. Now, I do. How could salt preserve meat? I would watch him put this meat in these boxes of salt and it would be there till next year or the next year because the salt preserved it. That’s where they get those hams from -- that salted ham -- because they pack it in salt ; they cure it. They learned this up here, not after, because they know all this stuff. Daddy didn’t go to school, but he could raise more food than we could eat for agriculture. He gave away his beans, his peas and stuff. The crop was so big, he would tell us, “Go put this bag of beans on the porch and just walk off. Just leave them,” because the neighbors got tired of him giving them that stuff. They couldn’t eat it ; we couldn’t eat it. Mama and them canned it as much as they could. That’s how we was brought up. Daddy provided that way. Money, we didn’t have -- very little -- but he made sure we ate. We had plenty to eat. We wasn’t hungry ; we wasn’t that hungry. I used to go out to the hen house when I was a little boy, and I would get eggs out of the hen house out the nest. And I would hold them in my hand and go straight to the kitchen, which was a wood stove that you already had prepared to cook on. And I would crack that egg in my hand in the pan. You don’t get no fresher egg than that from the hen house to the pan. That’s the way I was brought up. We had, in that smokehouse, Daddy would make sausage. Can’t get sausage like that today with the sage and all the hot peppers and stuff the way they made it. (laughter) And I can remember all I could do was reach that pot, what it was in. And as a little boy, I would stand on my toes and put my hands in there and just reach down like a dip and just get as much sausage as my hand could hold. And I would go to the store and put it in the pan. And that was the best sausage. Can’t find it like that no more. Every now and then, you’ll take one of them hot sage, that hot pepper and that sausage. It was good. We had homemade syrup. Homemade butter we bought from a man in Orchard Hill ; he made butter. We got our butter from him. Everything was homemade. We bought very little. That’s why I don’t care for syrup today, and butter today because I was brought up, as I said, on the real stuff. This stuff don’t taste the same. If you ever had a biscuit with some homemade butter on it, you could understand why we come up just eating butter bread. Our kids tell her, “How you snack on that all day?” I tell them, “All day, all we ate was butter bread, and sometimes just syrup and bread.” But they didn’t understand. It wasn’t this quality bread and butter that they have in the store today. It tasted better. WALKER-HARPS: Did you make the butter? Did y’all make the butter? CALDWELL: The guy in Orchard Hill made it. We would buy butter from different people. Different farmers (inaudible) different stuff they would make for his food. This one man, he made syrup. We would go by his house and buy the syrup. This one man, he made buttermilk. We would go by his house and buy buttermilk by the gallon. And that’s the way it was. If you didn’t have the money, you could pay him a dozen eggs, and he’d give you so much buttermilk. I mean you’d trade it out. You got any eggs? Yeah, I got a dozen eggs. Well, I’ll give you a gallon of buttermilk. That’s the way it was back then. CUNNINGHAM: Sounds like a cooperative, yes. CALDWELL: That’s the way it was, yes. And if you needed -- like, for let’s say at the store. Even at the stores back then, they would allow people so much credit. If you didn’t have the money to pay the guy that owned the store, and let’s say at the end of the year you owed him maybe, say like, “Well, we got a grocery bill from this year.” “Well, I got stuff on credit.” My daddy was sent 200-some dollar bill. If he didn’t have 200 dollars, he’d go out there and get him a hog. Daddy had a yard full of hogs. He’d give him a hog. Let’s sit on a deal. See what I’m saying? But everybody paid their way, and they cared. They traded it out like that, and they call that a shake-of-a-hand deal. Wasn’t no paper signed ; wasn’t no agreement, no contract, just your word of mouth and a shake of a hand. He said, “By the end of the season.” I didn’t know what that mean when I was a young boy. He was talking about when the crop got ready, when the hogs was full grown. At the end of the season, we’re going to square off, whether it be money, meat, or whatever, vegetables. We’re going to square off at the end of the season. A lot of times, that’s what they’d done. That’s what -- I don’t know what they got charged to plow those fields up, but he would go from house to house if you want it plowed up. And that’s the way I was brought up as a young boy. And we used to caddy on the golf course. We would put clothes on layaway to go to school. And all summer, we would caddy on the golf course to pay for them because Daddy had nine children. If you got nine kids working at the mill, and when you go to school today, in my day and time, we was wearing Levi’s and Converse All Stars, which they called Chuck Taylors. That’s what the young guys was wearing, and that’s what I wanted to wear -- the Levi pants and the Converse All Stars. I had to buy them, though, because Daddy couldn’t afford to do that with nine kids, so I would caddy and put my clothes on layaway. That’s how I got clothes to wear to school when we was coming up. CUNNINGHAM: Well, tell me about your experience as a caddy. I mean during that timeframe, was that a positive experience? CALDWELL: It was in a way, it was. In a way, it wasn’t because Daddy told us to work for a living, and we carried the golfer’s bag. And they had a wage decided what they paid the caddies, and the guys would pay it, and it was like two dollars and a half for 18 holes. The guys out in Atlanta always paid more. They would give you four to five dollars, sometimes even ten dollars, to carry their bag. I don’t know why the guys out in Atlanta paid more. The Griffin guys only paid 2.50. They wouldn’t pay any more. But the guys out in Atlanta, they always paid more. I had a friend -- y’all might know him -- Jim Sersa. I’m sure y’all know Jim Sersa, real estate fellow. Been in real estate forever. Jim was my friend at that time of segregation. The Griffin Drive-In is still there. Caught up below the library here by the cemetery, but that’s all. Right below Mount Zion Church. CUNNINGHAM: Memorial Drive? CALDWELL: Memorial Drive. Griffin Drive-In, still now, they sell the best chili dogs, best chili burgers in town. As a young boy, blacks weren’t allowed to go in there, but when I was a little boy, I ate in there because I was with Jim Sersa. He would take me in there with him and wasn’t a word said because I was with him. And he would buy me hamburgers and hot dogs and he would set them in front of me as a little boy, knowing I couldn’t eat them. He would buy me four hamburgers and two Coca-Colas. It just tickled Jim to watch me try to eat them because I did work for him around the house. And he was just good to me like that. He was my friend. Jim’s my friend today. He is today. Things like that I remember coming up as a little boy, people like Jim Sersa that really weren’t racist. He took me aside this restaurant where blacks weren’t allowed. But with him, because he was a big man at that time -- the Sersa family -- nobody said a word, because I was with him. But this is what bothered me caddying on the golf course coming up as a little boy, a young man. In school, they taught us the history of this country. And I always have been military minded ; that’s why I joined the military. I always have liked the military. I always wanted to be a soldier, and I would read a lot of stuff about the war and stuff like that. And I read about Japan, the war we had against Japan, how they bombed Pearl Harbor and so many Americans was killed at Pearl Harbor that awful day. And them two nuclear bombs they dropped on Japan because we would never beat them in that war. We had to do something to stop them, so our leaders decided to drop two bombs on them. It took two nuclear bombs to stop Japan. We heard about this in schools. But as a young boy, I’m at the golf course caddying. I’m not allowed to play golf on the city golf course. I wasn’t allowed to go inside the clubhouse as a black boy in the city golf course. But Japanese could play golf ; the Japanese could go inside the clubhouse. And you look at that with a bitter taste in your mouth. You’d be thinking, “What’s wrong this picture?” My brothers ain’t -- they wasn’t military like me. I was just -- even as a younger boy, I read about the military. I would just read military history. And I would tell them, “Do they realize how many Americans,” -- these guys playing golf didn’t, but the country as a whole -- “probably killed?” The Japanese? “And they have better rights than we do. They have better privileges than we do.” That’s what I looked at coming up as a young man. When I got of age in school, I realized school’s not working out for me. Wasn’t making good grades. If I ever finished school, I never would have went to college even with a -- all I would ever got was a high school diploma. I said, “I got to do something to make a positive move in my life. Always had loved the military. I want to join.” They drafted me in the Army ; that’s what they did. After they drafted me, I realized I was going in the Army anyway, but I always wanted to be a Marine because it was a lot of black guys back then, which was very rare having been in the Marine Corps. And Sam Bass was one of them. And Sam Bass’s sister, her name Deborah Bass, she was my friend -- not good friend, just a friend. And in ninth grade, by me having a job, I had my own car. Boy, that was something popular back then, to have your own car. That car got me in more trouble (laughter) just being in the ninth grade. God, that’s trouble for a ninth-grader to have his own car. And I would pick the girls up because they rode with me, because I had a car, on the weekend. I had a car. All of those were my friends. Mr. Oliver Hewitt’s wife -- I’m trying to remember her name now. Oliver Hewitt’s wife. I was schooling with his boys ; all of us went to school together, and she would come over there every evening and pick her boys up. And I would leave the house going in that car. I had on blast (inaudible), tires spinning, burning rubber. And she’d call Mama every day and tell on me. “Larry left school acting crazy in that car, just showing off.” And every time I’d get home, Mama would be waiting on me. Boy, that car got me in a lot of trouble. But her brother was the reason I joined the Marine Corps. I joined the Marine Corps because I told my mama -- I said, “If I’m going to Vietnam, I want to be trained by the best,” and I did. I spent a year in Vietnam during my service of time, and during that year, which was in 1969, was also during the Civil Rights movement. That was going on before I went in service, and even after I got out, it was really hard to deal with. I have spent a year in Vietnam for this country. The last thing the government told me to do. Watched a lot of my friends die, black and white, in this war zone, in a war we shouldn’t have never been there. But we went because the government said we should go. That’s like the worst scenario as a black boy. When you come home from Vietnam, a war like that, and your people are still fighting dogs and hoses and polices for their civil rights, and you asked yourself, “Where do I go from here? Should I be mean and angry? Should I fight? Should I kill somebody? What should I do with this now? I gave all I got. I have nothing else for this country to give. But now I got to come here and fight the dogs and the hoses, pipes, and the polices just because I want to come to a place like the University of Georgia,” where we are now. This place was here then. I wasn’t allowed on this campus. It was here then. The University of Georgia was there then. We wasn’t allowed on the campus. But I could go to Vietnam and fight for this, and that was really marvelous for I was only 20 years old. God almighty. I talked to Mr. Kendall, which was a teacher at that time, Mike Kendall’s daddy. Some of y’all might know him. And he was telling us -- he said, “Caldwell, you can come out here and go to Vocational Tech. You’re a veteran, and they have benefits for you, and the government will pay you.” I said, “Pay me to go to school?” He said, “Yeah, they would pay you to go back to school.” I got a second chance. I went back to school at Griffin Tech. It took me three years to finish a two-year course. For one reason, I broke my leg riding horses during that time I was in school. Plus, I wasn’t the smartest kid in school. I had a learning disability which, back in the ’60s, they didn’t see that like they see it now. It was a struggle for me. When some kids studied a couple of hours, I would be up all night just trying to grasp the basics of this project. That’s what I went through through high school. Guys like Freddy Champion and Larry Ferguson and different friends I had like that, all of us were real close, and we went to class together. And they would tell me, “Caldwell, we’re going to help you through this. We’re going to work together on this.” Anything I didn’t understand, they were like my tutors. They helped me anything I was -- they worked with me. They was my friends. That’s how I finished those two courses at that Griffin Tech -- welding and auto body repair. During the auto body repair, Mr. Walt Pitts with old Pitts and Carter’s grocery store. We had to have projects to work on at the school. He wrecked his truck ; I was at his store one day, and I asked him could I take his truck to school and fix it. It’d give me a project to work on. He said, “How much it going to cost me?” I said, “Very little to nothing because the school just wants you to pay for the material.” When I repaired his truck, he paid the school, and gave me some extra money too, and I realized I could make a living at this. It’s some money in this for me. For years, in that little alley right downtown Griffin, I had me a little body shop back there, me and Reverend Frank Wright. He has his own church now ; we were young boys back then. For years, I had my own body shop back there making pretty good, honest money ; I really was. I made good money, and that’s how my career started as making a living. I stayed there in that body shop. I would work in the body shop during the day. I would work at the mill at night. I was constantly putting in applications at General Motors, and that’s where I ended up at, at General Motors. After three years at Vocational school, with body and fender training with welding, I had landed, through the grace of God -- I had a job working in the largest body shop in the world, which was G.M Assembly Plant. And I stayed there 31 years. After 31 years, because of my vocational training, I landed the highest paying job on the assembly line in the whole body shop, which was head of repair. And I didn’t work on that line. I had a job off the line. They send the cars to me. I fixed them ; I repaired them, and I sent them back to the line because of the training I had at Vocational Tech School. That’s how I struggled to really make my way through life, is making a living. But I tell the guys all the time, a lot of young boys. They used to tell me, “When is General Motors hiring?” They always want to work with General Motors. And I’d tell them, “I was working at the mill when General Motors called me. What are you doing now?” A little work is better than no work. A low paying job is better than no job. They want to have no job and think they can step off the corner inside of a big company like General Motors, and they have nothing to offer. And I tell them how I did it. They don’t want to go to school ; they don’t want to be trained. They just think they can just walk in there and say, “Hire me.” I tried to explain to them, “We have to have something to offer.” I went through that a lot when I was coming up because I was a young man when G.M. hired me, and that’s how I made my living for 31 years, at General Motors. And I took applications in forever trying to get young guys jobs when I worked there. CUNNINGHAM: Well, it sounds like you’ve been trying to influence the next generation, and it sounds like Mr. Kendall played a big part in influencing you to go to Griffin Tech. CALDWELL: Mr. Kendall did. CUNNINGHAM: Mr. Kendall ; that’s what I meant ; I’m sorry. So were there other people that influenced your life as a young man growing up here in Griffin? CALDWELL: Yes. When I was in junior high school, Miss Harps was one of my teachers. She was always very nice. She always had patience. I remember her having patience with me because I wasn’t the smarter person. I wasn’t the one that sat right in front of her desk. I wasn’t an A student ; you hear me? I got back as far as I could because I was a slow learner, but she always had patience with me ; I remember that. Her -- Mr. William Walker were the principals and they sit up on top of the hill at junior high school. He was a kind and gentle man when we was in school, and he treated us with fairness and kindness. Although he was the principal -- he was the principal -- he wasn’t a mean man. All the way through elementary school and stuff, most all the principals were real mean. If you go up to the principal’s office, it ain’t like the school that it is now. As a young boy, they beat the socks off you. Any little thing you done, you got a whooping. Amen. Mr. Walker wasn’t like that. He didn’t believe in the belt. He’d talk to you ; he’d lecture to you. “Young man, come here. Young man, just, young man, let me tell you something. Young man, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to come up fine.” You know, he just -- Mr. Walker broke you down and made you feel conscious about what you did because he let you know there was a better way. He wasn’t a disciplinarian ; he was a teacher. He made you see your faults. He made you think about it. He made you want to be better. He embarrassed you for getting in trouble. That’s the way Mr. Walker were. He was that kind of man. He made you feel ashamed for getting in trouble, and you didn’t want to go there no more because you wanted him to respect you and look up to you. I don’t want to go to Mr. Walker’s office no more because he don’t like that. He don’t like that trouble. CRUICKSHANK: Now, this was at Fairmont High? CALDWELL: Mr. Walker was up there on the hill at junior high school. That was junior high. WALKER-HARPS: Kelsey. CALDWELL: Kelsey, yeah. People like him, Sam Bass, a lot of military guys went in. One of my church member’s sons got killed in Vietnam. Joe Baker, a friend of mine, he was in the Navy. He came home from Vietnam. It shows you how the war can mess a man up so bad. He killed himself, Joe Baker. Me and him were going to Griffin Tech together. And almost killed his wife -- he tried to kill his wife and himself. Hey, Miss Walker, you remember Mrs. Dobbs? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. I remember. CALDWELL: She lived and he died. That’s how the military was sending guys home back then, Vietnam. From the first ten years I came home from Vietnam, all I did was drink alcohol and head around to clubs for the first ten years, not knowing I was suffering from post-traumatic stress, war fatigue because my medicine was alcohol. That’s the way I came home from Vietnam. I didn’t know this until I talked to the psychiatrist. I was telling her I had been out of service ten years before I started having nightmares about Vietnam. And she asked me, “Well, what happened between the one and ten when you came home?” I told her, “I stopped drinking.” As I grew up and got older, I put all that foolishness behind me. I stopped drinking, stopped hanging around the clubs every weekend, stuff like that. I saw this young girl I wanted to marry, which went to their church I had invested in. I had turned my whole life around, and I started having nightmares because I wasn’t drunk. WALKER-HARPS: Did the church play an important role with you at that time or not? CALDWELL: Yes, yes. WALKER-HARPS: That was Reverend Harris? CALDWELL: Reverend Harris was my pastor. Reverend James was my friend. My wife went to Eighth Street where Reverend James was preaching. Pastor Harris was my preacher, my pastor on Boyds Row. I spent about as much time at Eighth Street than I did Boyds Row because I really loved this young girl. Well, she’s my wife today. (knocks on wood) Jesus Christ, we’ve been together for 40-some years, been married 30 of them. And I got to be good friends with Reverend James and the deacons because I spent so much time over there chasing my wife. Reverend James would tell me when he was out of town, “Larry, bring me the choir to me,” because at that time, the church didn’t have a van. I had a van because I working at General Motors. I was using the van and partying to chase girls. (laughter) I would bring the choir to him. Every weekend, he out of town, I’d load the choir up in my van. I’d been saying, “Get all the beer cans and all that stuff out of my van,” before I took the choir, still chasing behind my wife. A lot of them beer cans were hers too. (laughter) As time went on for years, that went by. One week, Reverend James was on revival. And you know, when you’re a friend of a preacher, it’s like, “He ain’t talking to me ; he’s talking to y’all. I’m his friend. He ain’t preaching to me. Me and his buddies ; I know his little secrets and he knows my little secrets.” You know what I mean? I listened to him one week. I actually listened to that man preach. It changed my whole life ; it changed my whole life. And that’s when me and my wife both -- I told her, “We got to get saved. We got to turn our lives around. What we’re doing ain’t going to work.” We were partying so hard at that time, I was afraid to go to her with that because I knew what we had to give up. And he said, “Seeing is fun. When you feeding the flesh, that’s fun.” She said, “I’m tired too.” She said, “Let’s go to church and get it right.” Up under Reverend James and Pastor Harris, we both got saved. Reverend James married us, and we’re still together today. They was going to make me a deacon at Eighth Street ; all I had to do was join the church. And my pastor found out about that, Reverend Harris. He heard ; he got wind of it, and he (inaudible). Yeah, he got me out of that claw before they got me, and I’ve been there ever since. And as time went by, my wife did join my church, and we’re still together now serving under Pastor Sewell. Pastor Harris, he passed away. Reverend James done passed away too. They both dead and gone, but we’re still in church. As did the lady sang the song, “You Yet Holding On,” we yet holding on. And that was -- that played a big part in my life as people in the neighborhood. It was teachers like Mr. Tucker in high school. He was concerned about us. Mr. Tucker would fuss and raise sand about stuff, you know, trying to keep us in straight. Mr. Tucker would like this here. At Fairmont High School, we would sneak off campus, as they say cutting class. We would sneak off campus, and Mr. Tucker saw you, because he was a tall man, he would run you down. He’d come get you. If he caught you, he’d come get you. Mr. Tucker wasn’t afraid of you, brung you right back to school. I look back at that and I realize he was concerned. Because he could have just looked at us and said, “Let them go off,” but he brought us back, made us come back to school. Teachers like that, they was really concerned as we was coming up, really cared about us. I think about Mr. Tucker a lot. I remember Miss Harps as a -- back then she was Miss Walker, Miss Jewel Walker. All the boys in the room had a little crush on her -- my middle school teacher. (laughter) And she was good to us. You know what I mean? And we liked her. (laughs) And the boys said, “I like her.” (laughs) That’s the way it was when you was coming up. You had crushes on your school teachers. I mean you didn’t know no better. You know what I mean? This lady ain’t staring at you. You’re just a child ; you can’t even feed yourself. (laughter) But we did as young boys, and I remember her and teachers like Mr. Walker like that when we was coming up. They played a big part of, you know, in school influencing us. They kept us going, and we wouldn’t give up because of their kindness. And Miss Harps now, that’s why she’s the head of NAACP. She care about people -- still care about people. See what I’m saying? She’s still stressed. She don’t have to do what she’s doing. She care about people. It’s just the way she is. Some people -- WALKER-HARPS: Now, you’ve raised some children. How many children do you have? CALDWELL: I have two: one boy and one girl. My daughter, Ophelia, she graduated from Savannah -- CUNNINGHAM: Savannah State. CALDWELL: Savannah State, yeah, and she’s living in Atlanta. She’s a psychiatrist ; she finished school. I made sure she went to college because I didn’t want her to struggle the way I did, and I realized she was real smart. She finished college in three years, 4.0 average. She called me that third year, and she said, “I finished all of my courses.” She said, “They’re going to make me come to school one more year to take one class,” because they wouldn’t give it to her. They made her come one year to take one class. I said, “Since you ain’t got but one class for that whole year, you got my permission to take that one class and have you some fun because you’ve done everything that I asked you to do.” She did that. She was Who’s Who. She was on the Dean’s List Cum Laude. She did everything she could do. And I can’t remember how many ropes that child had around her neck when they called her name on that stage to get her degree. That was one of the proudest days of my life. And my son -- you ever ate at the chicken at this business downtown, Just Wings? That’s his business. He owns that chicken place, Just Wings, and he did all right. He come up crazy. It took a long time, a lot of praying for that boy to get him out of the streets dealing with the drug dealers and dealing with drugs and stuff like that. But by and by, he realized going to jail ain’t what it look like. It’s best to work for a living. Couple times going to jail, he straightened up then. Now, he got two businesses. A lot of prayer and love for that boy, that boy of mine, that Demarcus Allen. He own Just Wings and he got a trucking company. They just bought a house in Heron Bay, and he won’t pay for the golf privileges because he don’t play golf and I play golf. And I said, “What good’s going to do you living in Heron Bay if you ain’t going to let me come up there and play golf?” (laughter) You moved up on the hill but you ain’t taking me up on the hill with you. You know I want to go with you. They don’t think about that, little kids. WALKER-HARPS: Now, you’ve got some grandchildren I admire. There’s somebody in that you raise or help raise I see you with all the time, some grandchildren. CALDWELL: Joshua, my little grandboy Joshua. He live with me. We practically adopted him because I saw him as me as a little boy coming up. His situation wasn’t the best. It wasn’t the best. Family, poor income, living in the worst scenario a child could live in at his age. That was my son’s boy by another girl. And we just practically took him in our home and raised him because I could look at him coming up and the situation he was in. I could only see myself. I said, “Somebody’s got to save this child. Somebody’s got to do something for him.” And me and my wife, we took it on myself to keep him. He live with us right now today. He’s in middle school now. And I have three more grandkids by my daughter Ophelia. Ophelia’s oldest boy, the one that goes to Mount Zion, the psychiatrist, apparently they call it a profession. What they call that when somebody want everything perfect? CUNNINGHAM: Oh, perfectionist? CALDWELL: Yes, perfectionist. He can’t stand it. It’s got be lined up. It’s really got them two lined up. (laughter) It ain’t right. That’s the way he is. He’s that way about his homework. He’ll come home crying because he made a B. He thinks you’re supposed to get an A in everything. I tell him, “Boy, you ain’t Einstein. You’re not going to get all A’s all the time, but you’re passing.” Right now at the school, they are testing him because they literally don’t know exactly what is IQ is because he’s so beyond the grade level that he’s in. In the summertime when school closed -- I forgot which (inaudible) Atlanta. One little college that my daughter was telling me, that’s where he goes to school during the summertime. He goes to some school with the college kids. What they be testing him on, I don’t know how they do that, but just how they -- because he’s so smart. And my one daughter by my son, Shebria, she done finished college. When she was in high school, they would pay her to let them test her. She was getting paid to take tests. And I asked her, “Don’t you get,” -- she’d spend all her salaries up and down taking tests. And at the end of the section, then they’d go and write her a check. And I said, “Bri Bri, don’t you get caught up here, Bri.” Shebria was her name. “Don’t you get tired of that anxiety?” She said, “They give me these tests, just which is so easy, and they’re paying me.” She said, “I don’t mind doing it.” And I asked the lady one time, I said, “Why do y’all test? Why you want her? Why you choose her to be tested?” She said, “Because we look at her grades and how she do on these tests and we use that to test other kids. It’s because she’s extraordinary smart.” And I didn’t understand the strategies behind that, but they would look at her grades and how she made on the test, and somehow they used that to test other kids with. And they paid her for that. I was proud of her. That’s what she did every Saturday. She would go there and took little tests. Little grandkids -- I’m proud of all my grandkids, and I love them, and I don’t have to tell them. I don’t have to tell them. I was sitting on my deck and I was playing ; Ophelia got two twins. I was just playing with them. And he asked me -- he said, “Granddaddy, why do you love us so much?” Them children, that’s one time I was speechless. I looked at that boy and I said, “How can I explain to you how much I love you when there’s no limit to it?” That’s what he didn’t understand. It’s no limit to how much I love you. I can’t -- and they said, “This much?” I don’t know. How can I count it? (inaudible) is east from the south and the south is from the north. The kids wouldn’t understand that. I will love you as long as I got breath in my body. He asked me, “Why do you love us so much?” And I do ; I love them. I love them so much, my daughter, my kids, my family. WALKER-HARPS: You, you had a rough life, rough childhood sort of, but you came out to make a success out of it, and you’ve got a testimony. So I have to say that that is what happened to your children. There must have been something in your home or in the environment surrounding them for them to turn out. They didn’t automatically turn out to be a success. Even the young man Joshua came to realize what he needed to be. CALDWELL: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: So would you -- am I right? Would you think that you experiences led you to be the kind of man that could direct them to the point that they would be the kind of children that they are today? CALDWELL: Yes. WALKER-HARPS: Had you been different, perhaps they would have been different. CALDWELL: Yes. WALKER-HARPS: But you have lived, as my mama would say, through all of it, and you’ve sowed all your seeds so you were ready to be a father and a grandfather. CALDWELL: My mother -- I think I got it from my mama. When I was just a young boy, when I first started working at General Motors, I lived with my mother before -- excuse me -- before I got married. Living with Mama, working for a company like General Motors, I had no bills, no debt, making more money than I needed, just having a good time with it. My sister had three kids, and they was in the worst scenario that a child could be in. And that really bothered my mama a whole lot. It really did. And I told her to go get them. I said, “Go get them, Mama, if that bothers you. You take them from her, and I dare tell you, what you eat, they going to eat. I will make sure it’s a plenty there for all of you.” And it was no problem for me because I was single with a good job. I bought -- at that time, I was paying two car notes: one for me, and one for my mama. No problem. I had nothing else to do with my money ; I was living with Mama. I made sure she had everything she wanted, and when I saw her concerned about those kids, I told her to go get them. And I took care of those kids and my mama. I think I got that spirit from her, to always reach back for your family members that you can take care or help. Do what you can to help your loved ones through their struggle. Just because you’ve made it through the gap, you always have to help others get there. You just can’t think about self all the time, and that’s the way I was brought up. I took care of Mama and my sister’s kids. WALKER-HARPS: Okay. I hope Doctor Sewell is using what you have to offer there with those children who are still coming from Spring Hill and Edgewood and whatever. I’ve not been -- I’ve not talked to him lately. I know him and I will be talking to her, but what I’m saying to you, you have a testimony, and I’d like to think that you are using it to help. You’ve helped your children, your grandchildren, but I’d like to think that somebody is using you and allowing you to have that kind of influence on some of these other children out there. CALDWELL: Okay. I have three little boys that belong to the younger church members in my church. They’re young boys that can still have babies -- not my age. They got three little boys, and every day, every Sunday after church, they’re looking for me. They want to come up there with me because the deacons have to sit where the pastors can see us. If something’s going wrong or whatever, we’re right there and it’s a small church. They don’t know they can’t come up there during church services, but they want to. As soon as church service is over, here they come, all three of them. Bam, they’re all over me because I spend a lot of time with them and I play with them and I talk to them. As kids, if you can get on their level, they’ll listen to you. You can’t go up to a child all the time being an adult. Sometimes you got to think on their level. And everybody ask me at church, “Why those boys crawling up your leg every Sunday and you can’t move from them?” Because I get on their level and talk to them, and I play with them. And I understand as a little boy that kind of attention because I had a strong, big daddy, and he was a big man, and he wore overall pants. And he would get off work when I was a little boy at the mill, and he would buy raisin cakes for me on the way home. But I had to find it. He had so many pockets in them overalls. I had to climb all over to find that pile. It would just tickle him to death for me to look for it, you know, because he was such a big man. And I treat the kids like that today, you know. Even at my church, I would ask their parents, “Is it all right if I give them 20 dollars or whatever?” Because I know they’re in school and stuff, and I’d give them money and stuff like that and tell them, “You know you have to work, you know, to earn your money.” I said, “I’m going to help you, but you got to go to school and work, you know?” And I try to be as good as helper for them. And I teach them ; I catch them cutting up in church. I stop them, talk to them about it, but they love me, and my grandboy gets a little jealous of that sometimes because he don’t want to share me like that. But those little boys, they are -- I tried to (inaudible). But I told one young lady. She fussed at her son all the time because he wanted to sit up front. I said, “Leave him alone.” I said, “If he wants to come up here, just leave him alone.” I said, “You never know ; he might be a preacher. He might be a deacon. You don’t know what reason it is he’s got this burning desire to come up here. He wants to be up here.” I said, “Let it run its course. We’ll see what will come from it.” Said, “Let it run it ; let him come. We’ll see where he goes with it.” Might be a preacher ; you never know. Might be a preacher. CAIN: So since this is going to be around 100 years from now, would you want to say a little bit about your grandparents or great-grandparents if you know them? CALDWELL: My grandparents? CAIN: Yeah. CALDWELL: My grandparents -- my grandfather -- I didn’t know about grandmother ; she died when my mother was a little girl. And I did see my grandfather. His name was George Washington Vandergriff, and him and Mr. AC Testone, which I know some of y’all probably remember him ; he’s passed now. Him and Mr. Testone was good friend as young mans. And Mr. Testone told me one night, because I had got in some trouble, and Mama sent Mr. Testone to get me out of jail because she knew him. I was just young and wild. He said, “Man, I knew your grandfather.” I said, “Papa?” He said, “Yeah, I knew your granddaddy.” I go, “Tell me something about him.” He said, “When we was young men,” he said, “your grandfather would not farm. He would not sharecrop because he knew there wasn’t no fairness in sharecropping. They weren’t going to treat him fair.” I said, “Well, how did he make a living?” He said, “Your granddaddy made syrup and he made bootleg whiskey. That’s how he made his money.” He said, “George Washington Vandergriff had so much money because he didn’t farm. He didn’t work on the farm. He made syrup.” Back then, not just making syrup for himself, he would go around to every farm and make everybody syrup because he knew how to cook it. That was a gift he had. On every plantation otherwise, he would cook the syrup for them. And he sold white whiskey. He said my granddaddy had a wagon, which they called a surrey. Was sharper than any car that you could have bought at that day and time because he had the money. He said he had a motorcycle. Back then, didn’t too many guys ride a motorcycle. The plower was (inaudible) hit in your head hard. It had to be. He was telling me some things back then about my granddaddy, and I was telling him, “I wish Papa had bought land with all that money he was carrying back then because if he had bought the land, we’d have been like Mr. Testone into the land.” He bought land. That’s why he got his wealth ; he bought land. And our stepmother wouldn’t let him buy land. I learned that through him because his children wasn’t her children. She carried the money on her on a money belt under her dress -- his money. She wouldn’t let him buy land, but he owned everything else: cars and motorcycles and... He said a surrey is a wagon you see on TV. You see the little balls hanging around it and stuff like that. The seat real decorated. It’s just not an ordinary wagon. It’s a sharp wagon. And he said my daddy had one that looked better than any car that was on the road. That much I learned about my granddaddy when he was coming up. He was a little-bitty man, but he was a tough little man, you know. He wore overalls and he carried a big old pistol. And Mama noticed him. He had a pistol so big it would just pull his pants down from behind. And he would leave the house walking back to Orchard Hill the way he had been drinking. He’d gotten back drunk, and my daddy told him, “George, you got to straighten up going through town like that. You can’t go through town drunk like that. The police is going to stop you.” He told him, “I’m going straight through town, and I ain’t going to walk no better,” because he didn’t care. That’s the way my granddaddy was. He didn’t care. Said he’s going straight through town. A little bitty proud man, but he made his own money. We didn’t farm ; he didn’t sharecrop ; he didn’t crop ; he didn’t pick the cotton and all stuff like that. He made syrup and made white liquor, and he had plenty of money. I learned that about my granddaddy and I always wondered when we were little boys, he always would buy Mama cars. Papa had money. He always would buy Mama a car, make sure we had something to ride in. We would go see him in Orchard Hill. He always kept her a car. That’s what I remember about my granddaddy. And I was just a young boy standing beside his bed when he took his last breath. That was the first time I ever seen a person actually die. You can hear him breathing all over the house. I knew something was wrong because Mama and everybody was there, and I knew it had something to do with Papa. But I didn’t know he was going to die that night. I knew he had been sick, but I was standing by the bed just looking at him. And I’m like, “Why Papa be in such a quiet mood?” And he was breathing so hard. And I just got to the point where I was just staring at him. I never took my eyes off him. And then just out of nowhere, he just took his last breath. CRUICKSHANK: What year was that? CALDWELL: I can’t remember. I was so young ; I was just a boy, just a little boy. I was probably about 11, 12 years old, if I was that old. I’m 69 now. That was about, oh, 60 years ago, yeah. I was only about eight, nine years old when that happened. WALKER-HARPS: You’ve talked about syrup a lot. What was it used for other than the biscuits? CADWELL: Syrup? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm, and did they use it to make bootleg whiskey? Or what was it? What was the main... I grew up with syrup too, but we just used it for cooking. CALDWELL: Most of the syrup was for cooking, and different types of syrup, they was using for sweetener. And this -- I’ll think of it in a minute. It’s an old fashioned syrup they used for cooking, but the regular syrup, it was just for consuming, like bread or eating it for breakfast on your pancakes and stuff like that now. And they got this syrup ; they use it now when they make baked beans. It’s -- I don’t like to use it, but it’s a black syrup. WALKER-HARPS: Cane patch? CALDWELL: Yeah, one of them like that they used. They put it in baked beans and stuff like that. Now, depending on what you were cooking, they would pour that syrup in it. But to tell you the truth, there wasn’t no syrup companies really, back in the early days. Most all the syrup was made at some farm somewhere because you couldn’t afford to buy cane patch out of the store, different brands like that. You couldn’t afford to buy that syrup. They sold their homemade syrup, which was better. It tasted better. CUNNINGHAM: I’m going to backtrack a little bit to talk a little bit about the Civil Rights Movement. Were you a participant or how did you participate in the Civil Rights Movement? CALDWELL: I remember when Dr. King was assassinated, and as a young boy, that night, all over Griffin, the skyline was lit up. Everything made out of wood was burning. If it was made out of wood, it was burning. They was -- the black was so mad when Dr. King was assassinated. They began looting ; there were riots and burning. It was a few black businesses in the black neighborhoods, but the only one they didn’t burn down, because you needed that store -- that’s where you’d buy your groceries. (inaudible) was the one that survived that night. That went on for several weeks before they got law and order. Every night, it was burning. I remember that as a little boy. Every night, it was burning. I remember when Jesse Jackson came to Griffin. I remember when Hosea Williams came to Griffin. They came down here on a march. Remember that wagon and mule? Hosea Williams, you know, we was just young boys that year. And they had a movement where all the blacks left the school and they marched over to Griffin High School because of integration and segregation. At that time, I was in Vietnam. I was about 19 years old when all that was going on. I was in Vietnam then. I didn’t see all that. I heard about it when I come home. Stuff like that was going on, and they would tell us to march. They would tell us to go march this store, like Woodward, downtown Griffin. Woodward had a water fountain in the back of the store, had the back of it clear as day. White and black: white only water fountain, but you could buy their product out of the store. I remember stuff like that coming up during the Civil Rights Movement. And they would put the kids out there because if we went to jail, we were just somebody they had to feed. But if they locked my daddy up, he couldn’t go to work, the bills couldn’t run, you know, stuff like that. So they just didn’t picket ; they used different strategies on them. We’ll put the kids out there. (inaudible) have something with no kids. All you got is a mouth to feed. They ain’t got to go to work Monday morning. You know what I mean? You ain’t hurting nobody. You just got to bust your kids free. And they stopped locking them up because of that because they realized, “This? We can’t win like this. Locking the kids up don’t work.” That’s what we was going through during the Civil Rights Movement. We would get out front because our parents couldn’t afford to go to jail. They couldn’t be locked up and stuff like that. When I -- where I grew up there on the south side, what they called Spring Hill, it’s right next to the golf course and the city park. They had a pool down there, an Olympic-size pool. We used to be canning and watch those kids go swimming in that pool, but we could not get in that pool. There were three black guys that went down there one day. One of them was named Ben. Ben was rough cut, didn’t back off from death for nobody. I can’t remember who were the guys with him. They walked into that pool and got into that water with nobody’s permission. When they saw that happen in Griffin, they knew then the blacks were going to follow suit. They’re coming ; they’re coming just like these two, three guys boasted their way into here. They’re coming. The city commissioners and all of them in Griffin began to meet. They buried that pool. It’s a football field down there now where they practice football. Up under that ground is an Olympic-size pool. They filled it with dirt ; they filled it with dirt before they let us swim in it. And I’m going to share something that a lot of people in Griffin probably don’t know about the city of Griffin’s swimming pool. The pool we have today, me, Willie Lewis, John Arthur with the police department -- he was a police officer. He was our supervisor at the pool. We were the first lifeguards to work at that pool. I think one guy they called him Muletrain ; worked for the fire department. He done passed now. WALKER-HARPS: He’s dead. CALDWELL: Y’all might know Muletrain. All of us was fighting ; all of us was lifeguards, young boys working at the pool. And I could never understand ; in front of the pool, it didn’t have Griffin Pool. It was Greek letters hanging over the door like a sorority. I’m saying like, “What this got to do with the city pool?” And every year, when we’d open the pool up, this well dressed gentleman -- you know how some people just look like when they got money? Driving this black Buick, big deuce and a quarter Buick. He would come in there and he would ask us, “How you like your job down here? How do you like working down here? How the conditions are?” I said, “Oh, man, we love it. It’s easy money. It’s no problem. Being a lifeguard is easy.” He said, “What you like about it the best working for the city as a lifeguard?” I said, “It’s a good job and you’re real popular with the girls when you’re a lifeguard.” (laughter) And he just laughed. He said, “I bet y’all are,” just like that. “I bet y’all are.” And that guy, when he left, I noticed the front of his tag had those same Greek letters that’s hanging over the pool. They done moved those Greek letters now. They’re not there now. So we start asking questions about it. What connection this guy got with the pool? We found out the city of Griffin did not build that pool. Technically, that pool is not in the park. Think about it. You know where the pool is in Griffin? It’s at the entrance of the park ; it’s not in the park. It’s at the entrance when you enter the park. They never did build it back in the park because the city did not pay for it. That young gentleman that came down there from that little Greek that was on his car -- I can’t remember what sorority it was -- they paid for that pool. The city financed the land, and the city did want us to manage it. The city paid us to lifeguard, but that Greek organization that he was in actually built that pool and put it there for the blacks to have somewhere to swim. That’s why those Greek letters were hanging over that door. We couldn’t understand what these Greek letters got to do with the city pool. They done moved them now, though. They grown. They not there anymore. WALKER-HARPS: So you have no idea who the man was? CALDWELL: We never -- all I knew the white gentleman come in, dressed real nice, and he always questioned about how we liked working, how we was being treated. And he would ask those questions every year. He’d done that several years. He stopped showing up, and we found out that they were the ones that built the pool, that sorority he was in. They built that pool there, not the city. They’d done that so the blacks would have a swimming pool. WALKER-HARPS: Hmm. Never heard that before. CAIN: Was this a black person who -- was this the person black or white? CALDWELL: The guy was a white gentleman, but he built the pool for everybody. But they wouldn’t let him put it in the park because they didn’t want the blacks then swimming in the pool in the park. So right there where it sat down, that’s the closest he could get it -- the entrance of the park. It’s really not in the park. It’s right there next to it. It used to be the old health department. And we found that out and we worked there as lifeguards. They sent us out to the S club to get certified because they had guys out there that could certify lifeguards. We went out to the S club to get certified as lifeguards. But the pool was there for blacks and whites really. But [01:07:00] it was a Greek organization, this Greek club. These boys with them Greek letters, this sorority, they were the one built that pool, not the city of Griffin. All the city of Griffin did was they overseed it. They paid us to lifeguard, stuff like that, but the city of Griffin didn’t do that. Sure didn’t. They didn’t do it. How they come about doing it, I don’t know, but they had to have a lot of money. It took a lot of money to build that pool. It’s a big, nice pool. WALKER-HARPS: Was that the same time that they filled the one on over at Fairmont? CALDWELL: Yeah. Yeah, they filled both of them up. They covered them both up, sure did. They covered the one we did have up and the one in the park because they said, “They can’t swim in the one in the park.” They was going to cover them. You can’t cover up one ; cover up both of them, and that’s what they’d done to keep us from swimming together. They keep us from swimming together. Just like, when we was in school, Griffin High School football team was never really heard of or known. They were the Griffin Eagles, and we used to talk about them all the time. They just wouldn’t win. They just wouldn’t beat nobody. They were just the Griffin Eagles. We were playing schools like Atto -- (inaudible). Atto was a farm school. All them guys were old enough to be in college, but they were just for farm school because they was in trouble. Might well had to sit in jail, but they had a football team. Forget about playing teams like that ; them boys didn’t take no prisoner. We were playing different schools from different places all over town ; it was tough. Griffin High didn’t have that kind of competition because just back then, all those schools was all black, and they were playing schools that was all white. They integrated Griffin High School. Y’all won’t believe this, son. The guy’s alive right now today. He was the first black guy to put on Griffin High’s uniform. His name is Marvin Martin. I could go put my hands on him right now. Marvin Martin, he was the first black guy to play for Griffin High. We used to go up to the game just to see Marvin play because he was the first black to be an Eagle that played after they integrated schools, after the Eagles. They would set down and Griffin High were losing. I mean just flat out losing, and he was on the bench. We sat there and we would chant, “Marco, Marco, Marco,” because his name was Marvin Martin. The coach would put him in. Marco outran them. Down the field he would go. (laughter) They’d catch him on the ten, five-yard line, (inaudible). Coach put him out. Put him out because none of those boys in the backfield get that ball in across that goal line. They’d take him out the game. Wouldn’t even score. Wouldn’t let him score. Take him out the game, and Griffin High were losing. We watched that week after week after week. They would give that boy that ball, and this is the sad part about it. They did not block for him. They did not block for him on purpose. He was just that fast. When he got that ball, he was on his own, and he made it work. Down the field he would go. Get in his scoring position. Instead of them giving the ball to him and letting him score, coach would take him out the game, and we would sit there and boo and raise all kind of sand ; it didn’t make no difference. Griffin High were losing. Had one of the best running backs to this day, Marvin Martin, and we’re losing. Wouldn’t let him play ; wouldn’t let him play. They came up out of the recreational department, a young boy named -- they called him Q Ball. They discovered this boy in the recreational department playing rec ball. He could throw the football from one end of the field to the other with no effort at all. Couldn’t nobody run that distance and catch it, but he could throw it. Got to Griffin High ; wouldn’t let him play. Wouldn’t let him play. If they let that boy play, with his ability, he would have graduated All-American. They’re losing ; Q Ball’s sitting on the bench. WALKER-HARPS: Q Ball. CALDWELL: You know him ; you remember Q Ball. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, I remember. Yeah, he’s (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible). CALDWELL: He’s sitting on the bench ; they’re losing. One of the best quarterbacks in high school ; wouldn’t let him play. They didn’t want him to graduate All-American. That’s what would have happened because he had that kind of a talent. He could flat out throw that ball. They would not let him play. We sniffed that stuff like that coming up. It was after the school was even integrated, the athletes that were there, they wouldn’t let him play. The coaches wouldn’t do it because just like now, if you’re an All-American athlete in high school today, you get a full ride to college. The scholarships, the money was there, even back then. If you graduated All-American, you were black. The colleges then was integrated, trying to be. A few of them was. Colleges were looking at black ball players. They didn’t want that to happen because he’d have been All-American. Somebody would have picked him up. If not white colleges, one of the blacks was. Sure would. I remember watching a movie about Bear Bryant when they -- first time they played as a college that had black ball players. And Bear Bryant told them -- this was a true story of Bear Bryant -- and we saw this. I witnessed this as young boys coming up. I can’t remember the name of the school. They beat the socks off Alabama. Them boys in the locker room called the n-word this and the n-word that because they was all white, Alabama. Bear Bryant stand back and just looking at them in the locker room. And he told them -- they had this in his movie -- he said, “Y’all are sitting there with your head down complaining, how they’re n-word this and their n-word down.” He said, “Next year, half of y’all jobs going to be replaced by some black ball players.” He said, “I got to win.” He said, “I’m going to replace y’all. Half of y’all going to be gone next year.” He said, “I got to get them black boys if I’m going to keep winning.” And that’s what Alabama done, and they never looked back. Even he saw it -- Bear Bryant saw it -- the athletes that the black guys were. He said, “We can’t beat them, not with an all white team. We can’t beat them boys like that.” They was black and white. There was too much gifts out there ; too much talent. Beat the socks off Alabama. Bear Bryant saw it too. He said, “I can’t go out there like this. I’m going to lose my job.” And we saw all of that coming up, integration and how the blacks had to struggle to try to make it, how they really had to struggle. I was reading about Mahalia Jackson, one of the greatest spiritual singers ever lived. Everybody knew Mahalia. Her husband had a college degree. Back in that day and time, the only job he could get with a college degree was a bill carrier for the post office carrying bills. That’s the only job he could get that paid pretty fair wages, a bill carrier. You don’t need a college degree to deliver mail. If you can read and count one through ten -- that’s somebody’s address -- you can deliver mail. See what I’m saying? That’s the only job he could get with a college degree. Blacks have struggled, even the ones in higher positions. You’d think that they would have it pretty good until you read the history and what they went through and how things were. But the most baffling thing to me was Pearl Harbor. And we sat there and watched those Japanese play golf, go in the clubhouse, buy them a cold soda, drink out the water fountain. These people have killed Americans. These people have brought tears to this country, and they have better rights and privileges than we have. All that coming up as a young boy, it was pretty rough. Even in the Marine Corps, we were called names and all kind of vulgar names. And during training, the training was hard enough as it was, but being verbally abused and physically abused, about as bad as one about as bad as the other one. They wouldn’t put their hands on us, but the thing they would say to you was worse than a whip because they wanted you to quit. The Marine Corps was like this ; they felt like wasn’t nobody good enough to be a Marine, black or white. You had to earn your way in there. You had to fight your way to be a Marine. You had to show them that you were qualified to be a Marine. And if you was black, you had to show them two times that you could be a Marine because you caught twice as much hell being black -- twice as much hell. But black guys made it ; they made it. I’ll never forget ; one day I was coming from the PX and I saw this one black guy. He was an officer, black Marine. He had one star. He was a one-star general. I looked at that boy till he got out of sight. I couldn’t believe it. I said, “It’s hope for us. It is hope for us out there somewhere.” He had one star, but he did have a star. He was a general, and I just couldn’t believe it. It was just amazing. I’d look at that young man and realized he was hope for me. I said, “It’s hope for us out there.” He was a one-star general. Sure was. I’d never saluted a man with so much pride in my life when I walked by that boy. Sure did. Things like that -- now we got guys in the military, black guys with all kind of ranking, all kind of officers. They take it for granted, but they don’t know the struggle, even in the military, to get where they are today, what the guy that was there first, what they went through -- what they went through. CRUICKSHANK: Where does all the hate come from? CALDWELL: Huh? CRUICKSHANK: Where does all the hate come from? CALDWELL: The hate? CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. CALDWELL: What we could see when we was coming up, it didn’t make no sense. Like, you don’t really know me, but you hate me because I’m black. I couldn’t explain that, just because we were different colors back in the ’60s. We didn’t do nothing that no other, young teenagers do. All my daddy did was work like any other man worked, but we was just black. How could you hate a person because they’re black and you’re white? That we didn’t understand. The hate, where it came from, I don’t understand it because it has to be taught, in a way. You have to be taught because... I saw a commercial one time on TV, and they was trying to sell this product. And their floor was full of babies -- black babies, white babies, Mexican babies, all kind of babies. And they were selling this product they were trying to sell. All these babies was playing and hugging and kissing on each other because they knew no hate. They were innocent at that time. But somewhere in their life, somebody got to tell them, had to teach them this hatred. When I was a young man at the store, at the Kroger’s -- old, old Kroger’s store before they moved -- this young lady was in line with me and had a baby in her arms that was old enough to talk but it was just a baby. And I’m in line standing behind this white lady and her baby over her shoulder looking right in my face. You know how babies stare at you anyway ; they’re going to do that. And I’m saying to myself, “I hope I ain’t the first black man that she’s going to see.” She was just staring at me, and she let me knew she wasn’t the first black baby. That baby raised her head up off her mama’s shoulder and looked right at in her mama’s face because that’s what her mama taught her. She said, “Mama, it’s a (language) back here.” Everybody in the store heard it. I said, “Oh my God.” She was telling the baby, “Hush. You hush your mouth. You hush your mouth.” I told her just like this, “You taught her that. Now, you telling her to hush.” I said, “She don’t know what she’s saying because she’s just a baby.” You see what I’m saying here? I said, “You taught her that, ma’am. Now you want to make her hush.” It embarrassed her more than it did me. Everybody in the store heard it. That little baby said, “Mama, there’s a (language) back here.” I said, “Good God.” She taught her that. Sure did. When you -- that’s why Mama would tell us, “Don’t curse around kids. Don’t curse ; them children hear you cursing and staying stuff because they pick it up then learn it from you.” If you curse, your children are going to curse. If your drink, your kids are going to drink. They’re going to have your habits. A baby can drink more beer right now than you can. I don’t know why babies love beer. Babies love beer. If they see you drinking it, they can pick it up easy. They like it anyway for some reason. But God almighty, you know, that hatred thing is being taught just because. I don’t know what it is. Back in the ’50s and the ’60s, the days, the times I remember, it was so much hatred because you was black. What was so wrong about being black? It makes no sense. I bleed like you bleed ; I hurt like you hurt ; I love like you love. I get hungry just like you do. I get sleepy just like you do. I love my family and my kids and I work for them just like you do. I wouldn’t harm your baby because I got babies. I’m not going to harm your wife because I have a wife. But by me being black, we was feared. Just being black, that made you dangerous. We couldn’t understand that. We got locked up as young boys because the city park, going to the other side of town, we would walk through it because it was quicker to walk through the park than to go all the way around this big old place. And the police is out there security guard. Kids playing all over the park just like me. I was just a child, and they would stop me. Said, “Where you going, boy?” Just like that. I said, “I’m just cutting through to go to my friend’s house.” He said, “You better walk a little faster.” And then we began to run because the police said, “You better walk a little faster,” just because we were black. WALKER-HARPS: Were there many incidents at that time in Griffin with the police? Were there many racial incidents with the police? CALDWELL: Just like that, yeah. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. CALDWELL: Yeah, yeah. We didn’t have nowhere to go for us, the park and [01:25:00] going to the pool and places the white kids had to go for recreation and stuff like that. We couldn’t go the gym and play ball, down to the park. They wouldn’t allow us at the gym, so we would stay in the cold under the streetlights. And we would sing and play ball or whatever right up under the cold because we wasn’t allowed to go nowhere. And the police would ride through the neighborhood and lock us up because we were standing on the corner. We would go to jail for that. We saw the police coming before they got there. We would have to run, go hide till they go by. We wasn’t allowed to even stand on the corner, but we had nowhere else to go -- nowhere else to go. WALKER-HARPS: Now Samuel, your friend Samuel was one of the first black policeman’s hired, right? Sam Bass? CALDWELL: Sam Bass? WALKER-HARPS: Uh-huh. CALDWELL: Sam Bass and Love... Love. WALKER-HARPS: Love Maddox. CALDWELL: Love Maddox, Sam Bass, and Marvin Barrett, Pop Ellis, and Harry Mullett. They were the first black police officers that worked for the police department, and they were not allowed to lock up white people. That was the rule. They could not lock up white people. They had to call a white officer. But one day, in the alley -- they call it downtown Griffin -- the alley was all black businesses in the alley, and Sam Bass was walking his route as a police officer. He was coming through the alley. Everybody knew Sam. Like I said, he was an ex-Marine, big as a bus, strong as a bull. White guy coming down through the alley drunk -- I don’t know who told that man to hit Sam Bass, but he hit him because he was a black police officer. He had a bad day that day. He had a real bad day when he hit Sam Bass. When they got there to lock him up -- the white officers -- it wasn’t much for him to say because he was knocked out. He hit the wrong police that day. I don’t know why he hit that boy, big as he was, and he was a police officer. Sam put a whooping on that man in one way. He had a bad day. But he couldn’t lock him up. Had to call the white officers to come and get him. It was like that a long time. As integration and segregation got better and better by the laws being passed, see that was not really right to hire a police officer but he can’t lock a white man up. That didn’t last long. That didn’t last long because it really wasn’t right. They did it for a while ; said, “Well, we’ll hire him, but he can’t lock up white people.” That’s what they’d done. That’s what they’d done. But they took the jobs under that situation and those conditions because somebody had to be first, and they were the first ones. They tried to get me to join the police department when I came home from Vietnam. And I told them, “I didn’t... I got by one shooting, and I don’t want to get killed over having a metal, toting a gun.” I said, “I don’t want to be no police officer, man. I would lock up -- who I’m going to lock up? My friends? Everybody that’s around here I know. I don’t want to be no police.” I could only lock up my friends ; I couldn’t do it. I turned it down. But that word hate, I can’t explain it when there was no reason for it, only because I was black. I was black. I was -- my daddy used to cut grass in Experiment when he got off work for this white guy up there. He had a little bitty bulldog. And we used to go up there early in the morning, and I would watch this man cook hamburgers. And he just didn’t make the meat and threw it to the dog. He would fix a complete hamburger with all the trimmings, and his dog was black, and he would feed it to that dog. But me, as a little black boy out there cutting his grass, he’d never offer me a hamburger. Never asked me, “Are you hungry? Do you want a hamburger? Do you want anything to eat?” All of them wasn’t like that because I would tell you about in Experiment about my first banana sandwich. My daddy was cutting grass in a house that lived down below that one because he had seven yards up there he cut grass on. This Saturday morning, this white lady was bringing in her groceries, and she asked me to help her. And Daddy told me, “Go ahead ; help her take her groceries in the house,” and I did. When I got in the house, she had a son in there, a little boy -- me and him about the same age. He watching cartoons on the TV, and I’m still unloading her groceries back and forth from the car. Every time I would walk by that room, I would glimpse at the TV. And I’d go back and get some more groceries. When I’d come by that door, I’m glimpsing at the cartoon. I think she saw me because she told me, “Go in there with my son and watch the TV.” I said, “I got to go out here and work. I got to go help my daddy.” She said, “Don’t worry about it.” She said, “Go in there with him and watch the cartoons.” I ain’t got no problem with that ; it’s hot out there. (laughter) I’m sitting there with the little boy watching cartoons and Daddy’s out there cutting grass. Every now and then, I’d see his head go around the window with that lawn mower ; I’m sitting there watching cartoons. This white lady was nice, you know. Everybody wasn’t mean. And she had brought me a banana sandwich. I never had a banana sandwich. I’ll just have a sandwich. I don’t want bananas in it. I said, “Bananas and bread?” She said, “Taste it.” Had mayonnaise and everything on it. I said, “Ma’am, I don’t think it’s going to come out right.” She said, “Taste it.” And her little son was sitting there eating his sandwich ; me and him both had a banana sandwich. I bit that banana sandwich. Oh, man, I was introduced to a whole new world. I’d been eating them ever since. (laughter) Banana sandwich. But what was so funny, I’m sitting there with the little boy eating that banana sandwich, mayonnaise everywhere, and every now and then I’d see Daddy’s head come by that lawn pushing that lawn mower. That was too funny. He said, “Boy, where you been?” I said, “You told me to help her.” I said, “When I got in there, she told me to sit down and eat.” (laughter) That was funny. Things like that I remember as a little boy. I laugh about it today. Like I watched them cartoons, eating that banana sandwich, watching Daddy’s head go by that window cutting that grass. Boy, that was funny. Stuff like that I remember coming up as a young boy. CRUICKSHANK: But doesn’t that make you wonder, you know, why the difference, you know? CALDWELL: Some people were just nice, and some people were just mean. CRUICKSHANK: But why is that? CALDWELL: I don’t understand why that. She invited me in her house to sit down with her little boy and eat, and she didn’t have no problem with that. And she knew, as a little boy, she didn’t want me out there with Daddy cutting grass. That’s why she did that, so I could get out that heat out there. And she let me sit there with her boy and eat and watch the cartoons. She was a nice lady. Everybody white back during the Civil Rights Movement were not mean or we would not have our rights today. Look at the movies. Look at the tapes. When Dr. King was marching, when they was picketing, there was the whites out there too getting the hose and dogs put on them. Now, the whites was marching with Dr. King and they were throwing them bricks at him. It just wasn’t everybody white hated everybody black. It was a lot of white people who marched with Dr. King -- a lot of them. And let the truth be told. I look at today where we have come from. We have a black president in the White House. Believe me ; the white folks helped us got that black president in that House. Give credit where it’s due. Amen. We didn’t do it by himself, but we were so proud of him. Let you know all white people are not mean ; all of them are not evil and racist. Some of them just want to live right and do the right thing because let the truth be told that we’re all going to meet the maker one day. We all got to meet him, and they say he’s in heaven. If you’re not living right, if you’re not a born again Christian, you’re going to go before him. And you’re going to see heaven, and you’re going to have to leave. Some people know that, and they try to -- can you imagine seeing heaven, something that great, and have to leave? You cannot stay. That’s enough right there to make you want to live right. But that’s what’s going to happen, and some people realize that. We have to live right regardless of what color you are. We have to love one another. We have to treat one another right. I got a phone call this morning. It ain’t like I’m rich. One of my church members been real sick, and one of the deacons said they’re trying to get 500 dollars for him, to give him. They’re trying to raise 500 dollars. He asked me would I help, and I told him, “I will give him 100 dollars.” Behind me is a refrigerator that’s not working. Our refrigerator been out for a whole two months because Lowe’s -- the warranty they gave us -- they wouldn’t fix it. I don’t have any food that I can eat in my house as you would go in your refrigerator. I don’t have a refrigerator, but I gave this boy 100 dollars. My stove that I cook on, that hole is empty because it’s so burnt out. I’m replacing it with another stove, trying to get it hooked up. I didn’t have 100 to give, but sometimes you have to do to help others when you’re really not able. I’m eating and living out of a cooler on my back deck. All my water, sodas, milk and all that stuff -- perishable stuff -- is in the ice cooler. Been that way for two months, but I still gave him 100 dollars. See what I’m saying? You have to do things when you’re really not able regardless of the situation you’re in. You still have to help people because it’s always somebody in a worse shape than you are. This man’s been real sick a long time, real sick. WALKER-HARPS: Well, that’s just a testimony to everything else you have said today about yourself when you were growing up. Uh-huh, that really is. It didn’t just happen. We’ve got to close up now. It’s late. CUNNINGHAM: Well, do you have anything else you want to share with us before we close out today? WALKER-HARPS: You may go. CALDWELL: If y’all need any more questions, like I said, my childhood and my coming up was a long story. I tried to tell it short and brief as I could. And I just want to put on -- CAIN: It was a pleasure to meet you. CALDWELL: I just want y’all to know, even when I was coming up, I had some young boys that was white and they would take me to their house. And their parents were working, and we would eat up everything in the house. God, we were friends. They didn’t see me as black or white. We were just friends, and I met a lot of young guys like that. We got together. We were young boys ; we hung out together. And that’s just the way it was coming up. Because their parents might have been racist ; they wasn’t racist. God, we played together. We had fun together and everything back there on that golf course. We’d get butt naked and swim in the creek together. We did all that together because I couldn’t go to the pool ; he could, but he would swim with us in the creek and stuff like that. We was friends. And I’d tell you about Jim Sersa, still here today. Jim was my friend, was. He never treated me like I was black or white. I was just his friend. I had a lot of white friends coming up in Griffin, a lot of them. Stewart, the sheriff, he was my friend. I used to tease him about it all the time. When Stewart first came to Griffin, he was a police officer. He wasn’t the sheriff. I said, “Stewart, you never caught me,” because we used to shoot dice under the streetlights. And they would pull up in their car and we’d run. And we found out if we leave the money, they wouldn’t chase us. Wasn’t about three or four dollars, no way. If you’d pick the money up, they would run us all the way through the woods, come and pick the money up. If we leave the money, they wouldn’t chase us. They’d pick the money up. “Oh, we’re going to get y’all next time.” They’d pick that money up and get back in the car. I told Stewart, “Stewart, you never caught me.” I said, “I was one of them black boys you was running on Spring Hill every weekend.” He said, “What?” I said, “I was one of them.” I said, “Boy, I got to play rough with you. You never caught me, Stewart. I was too fast for you.” I was working for the Sheriff’s department then when I told him that. We would laugh and tease about it all the time. I ended up there working for him at the Sheriff’s department. I said, “Stewart, you never caught me.” I said, “You couldn’t catch me.” He would laugh about that. He said, “I caught half of you though.” I said, “But you never caught me.” We would laugh about that tonight. When he died, I cried. I liked that Stewart. He was just an everyday guy. Grew up to be a sheriff, just like me trying to struggle and make it. He was the sheriff, but he still was the same old Stewart. I hate the way he -- I understood he got killed. But I had a lot of white friends like that, lot of them. WALKER-HARPS: I hated that too. He knew I always thought he was a racist, but a couple of weeks before he died, he sent me a message. “Tell Miss Harps. I’m not a racist ; I like her. I’m not a racist ; you make sure you tell her.” And I said, “I wonder why.” I took it as a repentance. I took it as yeah, you know, sometimes things happen to people just before they die -- CALDWELL: Yeah, I grew up with him, yeah. WALKER-HARPS: -- and they want to make things right. And when I heard about, that’s what entered my mind. He knew that I felt that way about him. I knew. I always thought he wanted to make it right. CALDWELL: He wanted to make it right, yeah. CUNNINGHAM: Well, Mr. Caldwell -- no, you go ahead. WALKER-HARPS: We enjoyed your very, very wonderful interview from the heart. I got a real good view of the inside of you today. CALDWELL: Okay. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, and you’ve got a testimony to give, and hopefully I’ll be calling on you at other times when -- particularly with the young people -- CALDWELL: Okay. WALKER-HARPS: -- because what you were saying is of value to them. CALDWELL: Okay. WALKER-HARPS: Thank you so much for giving your time and your effort to come and share with us today. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you so much. CALDWELL: I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I’ve been looking forward to this because I have so much respect for Miss Harps, you know? Anything she ask me to do, I try to do it. She called me, fussing me off, talking, “Have you paid your membership due?” WALKER-HARPS: I do fuss at you. CALDWELL: I already paid my membership through the year, but she makes us pay our membership due. WALKER-HARPS: That’s right. (laughter) That’s right. CALDWELL: Don’t forget our membership due. And it ain’t that I don’t want to ; I just have to remind me. WALKER-HARPS: I’m coming over there. CUNNINGHAM: Right. WALKER-HARPS: I’m coming over to clean to house and you’ll -- CALDWELL: Yeah, come over and clean the house with me and Shirley. She’s in a meeting now. She’s a commissioner. You see all these new high apartments you been around here in Griffin, the housing authority? WALKER-HARPS: She’s on the board. CALDWELL: My wife is on the board. They’re the one doing all that, tearing this old stuff down, building these new houses. The housing authority’s doing that. She’s a commissioner. She’s Miss That and (inaudible). She stay busy all the time. Miss Harps. We got to call her Miss Walker when I was a young boy because she was Miss Walker ; she was our schoolteacher. WALKER-HARPS: I know. CALDWELL: She was my undercover girlfriend. She knew that I liked her so much. END OF AUDIO FILE Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Griffin, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
102 minutes
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-021/ohms
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Larry Caldwell, August 30, 2019
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA-021
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Larry Caldwell
Art Cain
John Cruickshank
Be-Atrice Cunningham
Rich Braman
Jewel Walker-Harps
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
African American veterans
Discrimination
Civil rights
United States--Veterans
United States--Civil rights
Description
An account of the resource
Larry Caldwell grew up in Springhill, Georgia during the era of segregation. He served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War and when he returned, attended Griffin Technical Institute before he attained employment at General Motors. In this interview, Caldwell talks about growing up in Springhill, his experiences after the Vietnam War, discrimination, and the Civil Rights Movement of Griffin, Georgia.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Two-Party Georgia Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Political parties
Two-party systems
Georgia--History
Georgia--Politics and government
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
The Two-Party Georgia Oral History Project documents how the Georgia Republican Party grew from a small grassroots party during an era of Democratic dominance into the state’s premiere political organization and governing party over the course of the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Interview participants represent current and former Republican and Democratic political figures who were active contributors or commenters on this transformation between 1952-2016, with a primary focus on the years post-1974.The collection documents the personal experiences and insights of the candidates, officeholders, activists, organizers, strategists, and analysts who participated in those key campaigns, intraparty conflicts, policy debates, and legislative battles. It also documents the accounts of the journalists and scholars who have chronicled these activities and achievements.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=4&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-ongoing
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL425TPGA
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Hyperlink
A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
69 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Augusta, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL425TPGA-086/video" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL425TPGA-086
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Leroy Simkins Jr., September 18, 2019
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Leroy Simkins Jr.
Ashton Ellett
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-18
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Veterans
State governments--Officials and employees
Political campaigns
Watergate Affair, 1972-1974
Description
An account of the resource
<span>Leroy H. (Roy) Simkins, Jr. was born in Augusta, Georgia, and grew up in Beech Island, South Carolina. He is a graduate of Richmond Academy in Augusta and Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. After serving two years in the U.S. Army, Simkins returned to Augusta. After working for his father’s construction firm, Simkins entered the real estate business in 1959. Simkins, a Republican, won election to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1964 and became House Minority Leader in 1965. Simkins ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress in 1966. He returned to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1968 but declined to seek reelection in 1970. Simkins is founder and owner of Simkins Land Company, a timber, land appraisal, and real estate firm. He resides in Augusta.</span><span></span><br /><br /><span>Simkins discusses his early life and education in Beech Island, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia. He talks about attending Washington & Lee University, serving in the U.S. Army, returning to Augusta to work for his father, and starting his own real estate firm. Simkins reflects on his growing interest in Republican politics during the early 1960s. He recalls his unsuccessful campaign for the Richmond County Commission in 1962, Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, and his successful 1965 Georgia House campaign. He discusses his experience in the Georgia House of Representatives, as a member and House Minority Leader. The interview turns to his unsuccessful 1966 congressional campaign as well as Bo Callaway’s historic 1966 gubernatorial run. Simkins assesses the impact of Richard Nixon and Watergate on the Georgia Republican Party during the 1970s. The interview closes with Simkins’ thoughts on how the Georgia Republican Party has changed since he became active.</span><span></span>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Oral History Project was initiated in 2014 to document modern Athens history, roughly from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Interviews cover topics such as neighborhoods and communities in Athens, civil rights demonstrations, African American history, as well as personal histories of narrators.<br /><br /><span><strong>Content Warning</strong>: Some interviews in this collection contain harmful or distressing content, to include racism, racial violence, and racial slurs.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=1&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
97 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-044-01/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview</a></span></h3>
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-044-01/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
2022-05-09
Interview with Marion Stroud, Part One, May 9, 2022
RBRL361AOHP-044-01
97 minutes
RBRL361AOHP
Athens Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Marion Stroud
William Breeding
0
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_v5k2hyyq&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_bzd90y22" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Marion Stroud, Part 1, Athens Oral History Project"></iframe>
0
Introduction
Today I am here with Mr. Arnell Stroud
Stroud introduces himself. He lists his education and career throughout his life.
Allen University;Athens High and Industrial School;Athens High School;Baxter Street;Frankfurt University;Jeruel Academy;Union Baptist Institute;University of Georgia;Washington High Schhol
241
Black medical practices in Athens
What we'll do- again I'm repeating myself because I had my part off
Stroud describes being born at home by a midwife. He recalls the hospitals available and mentions that there were only two black doctors at the time.
Athens Regional Hospital;Dr. Andrew Jones;Dr. Frederick Earl McLendon;Hancock Corridor;Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital;Reese Street;Segregation;St. Mary's Hospital;Susan Medical Center
391
Union Baptist Institute
And we're taking you now to elementary school
Stroud details Union Baptist Institute's campus. He emphasizes that students from across the country attended the school and the school was funded by Baptists churches nationwide.
Baxter Street;Linnentown;Lindentown
714
High School
Now at what point did you go to high school
Stroud describes Athens High and Industrial School and lists some of the teachers that taught there. He explains that his favorite subjects in school were those related to English and highlights his love for art and music. Stroud also talks about being part of the band and chorus.
C.B. Smith;Homer T. Edwards;Mr. Holmes;Ms. Swinton;Pope Street;Reese Street;Reese Street School;Reverend Phillips
1091
Working in the army, higher education, and career
Now um from there where did you- I thought I heard you say you did something in Germany
Stroud explains that his sports experience in high school led to a full scholarship in football. He discusses attending the military during his college years and learning German in Germany. He also discusses attending college and obtaining his master's in art at the University of Georgia. Stroud highlights how his passion for art transferred to his career in art education and his involvement in a band.
Air Force;Allen University;Chambéry, France;Clarke Central;First AME Church;Frankfurt University;Hills Chapel Church;Jackson Street;Lamar Dodd;Shady Grove;University of Georgia;University of Maryland
1678
Hot corner in the 50's
Now um Let's see that's taken us from birth to now
Stroud details the history of Hot Corner and the significance of Pink Morton in providing federal jobs to Black people. He describes the business and buildings that existed and the important Black figures that contributed to Hot Corner. Stroud also talks about the insurance companies and their role in employment for Black people.
Atlanta Life Insurance;Ben Adams Dry Cleaning;Downtown Athens;Dr. Frederick Earl McLendon;Dr. Ida Hiram;Dr. William H. Harris;Guarantee Life Insurance;Mack & Payne Funeral Home;Morton Building;Morton Theater;North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance;Ray Ware;Samaritan Hall;St. John Fire Baptized Holiness Church;Wilmer jones;Winfrey Mutual Funeral Home
2350
The Bottom
Now some of the areas you mentioned about- The Bottom
Stroud describes where The Bottom was located. He describes it as a place where only Black people lived and emphasizes that is was one of the largest Black communities in Athens-Clarke County.
Downtown;First AME Church;Hart Avenue;Lumpkin Street;Segregation;Strong Street;United States Postal Service
2558
Black neighborhoods
Yes I would like to talk about all of the neighborhoods- Black neighborhoods at that time
Stroud describes Athens communities as being segregated and that many Black people owned their homes. He emphasizes that where there was a Black church and a pure Black community. He then lists areas in Athens where Black people lived.
Athens High and Industrial School;Beechwood Drive;Brooklyn Road;Callaway corner;Chase Street;Ed Bazell;First AME;First AME church;Hancock Ave;Hill First Baptist Church;Lucy Cobb Institute;Magnolia Street;Milledge Avenue;Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church;Phillips Road;Pope Street;Public housing;Pulaski Street;Reese Street;Rock Glen Road;Segregation;St. Mary’s Hospital;The Bottom;The E.D. Harris Drug Store;University of Georgia
3387
The Black Economy/ Changing racial demographics
What happened?
Stroud lists the areas in Athens that are no longer predominantly Black. He describes the "Black Economy" that existed during segregation, highlighting that Black people would do jobs that white people would not. He recalls Black people being able to afford homes and cars with their income. Stroud also describes the ways in which Black people lost their homes, businesses, and jobs.
Allenville;Barnett Shoals Road;Baxter;Broad Street;Chase Street;Dorsey Tabernacle Baptist Church;Elks Club;Gentrification;Hot Corner;House of Blue Lights;Hurley Funeral Home;Magnolia Street;Milledge Avenue;NAACP;Newtown;Park Ridge Dr;Thankful Baptist Church;Uptown;Urban Renewal
5043
The decline of the Black Economy
Now basically uh- Now redlining was there any of that involved in Blacks losing property?
Stroud states that Black people who were financially independent were able to avoid racist economic policies. He describes UGA's role in buying Black homes and communities and emphasizes that they were responsible for the destruction of the Black Economy. Stroud explains that the Black families that were not financially secure had no choice but to sell their homes and because of this, those neighborhoods became predominantly white.
Baxter Street;Linnentown;Lindentown;Parkview;Predatory lending;Prince Avenue;Public Housing;Redlining;Union Baptist Institute;Urban Renewal
5552
Advice for the next generations
Well I have one last question for you
Stroud advises people to buy and keep property. He details how people at different stages of their lives should live and emphasizes the importance of education and creating generational wealth.
oral history
No transcript.
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Marion Stroud, Part 1, May 9, 2022
Subject
The topic of the resource
Athens Black History
African Americans--History
Musicians
African American musicians
Art and music
Bands (Music)
African American business enterprises
Public housing
Segregation
Urban renewal
United States--Veterans
African American veterans
United States. Air Force--Airmen
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Marion Stroud
William Breeding
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-05-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP-044-01
Description
An account of the resource
Marion Stroud was born and raised in Athens, Georgia. He attended Union Baptist Institute and Athens High and Industrial School before receiving a football scholarship to Allen University. While in college, Stroud served in the U.S. Air Force in Germany and studied German at Frankfurt University. He finally received his Master's in Arts at the University of Georgia and continued his passion for Art through his career and his band. In this interview, Stroud discusses the history of the Athens Black Economy. He also recalls the Black communities that once thrived in Athens and gives explanations for their demise.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard B. Russell, Jr. Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Officials and employees
State governments--Officials and employees
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
The Richard B. Russell, Jr. Oral History Project consists of 175 oral history interviews relating to the personal and political life of Richard B. Russell. Interviewees include members of the Russell family, his staff and interns, other senators and public figures, and friends. The primary interviewer was Hugh Cates, a public relations manager at Southern Bell and secretary of the Russell Foundation (1977-1981). Most of the interviews were recorded between 1971 and 1979, but the majority during 1971 after Senator Russell's death. Other interviewers include: William Stueck, Karen Kelly, Barboura Raesly, Robert G. Stephens, Jr., Dwight L. Freshley, Tom Jackson, Angus Hepburn, and Russell Library staff. Interviews provide insight into Senator Russell's political career as State Representative, Governor, and U.S. Senator, his views on various topics such as civil rights and Vietnam, and his personality and family life.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=23&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1971-2002
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL216RBROH
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Hyperlink
A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
Transcript, 10 pages
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL216RBROH-151
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Max Cleland, February 23, 1971
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1971-02-23
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Max Cleland
Description
An account of the resource
Interview with Max Cleland, Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Administration, 1977-1981. Topics include Civil Rights Movement; Russell's faith in American government; Vietnam Conflict, 1961-1975; War injuries.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Veterans
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History
Georgia--Politics and government
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
The Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection consists of interviews with politically prominent Georgians conducted by Bob Short from 2006 to 2016. Interviewees include former governors, members of both the U.S. and Georgia Congresses, secretaries of state, lobbyists, journalists, lawyers, activists, and relatives of prominent politicians. Included with these oral histories are a few public programs recorded at Young Harris College in 2006-2007. Most interviews were recorded in the homes and offices of interviewees or in the Bob Short Oral History Studio at the University of Georgia. The conversations cover many topics at the intersection of politics and public life in modern Georgia, with a particular strength in gubernatorial contests, the Civil Rights movement, reapportionment, the development of Atlanta, the rise of the Republican party in Georgia, political journalism, and the interaction between religion and politics.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=9&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here. </a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006-2016
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL220ROGP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-079/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Max Cleland, May 5, 2009 RBRL220ROGP-079 RBRL220ROGP Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection ROGP 079 Interview with Max Cleland Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Max Cleland Bob Short oral history 1:|13(16)|23(9)|33(2)|41(7)|50(13)|58(15)|69(15)|78(13)|91(6)|100(15)|110(9)|120(5)|130(5)|139(7)|150(5)|161(1)|171(2)|180(8)|192(11)|202(7)|213(13)|223(4)|232(6)|243(15)|254(12)|264(13)|274(2)|284(12)|296(17)|307(1)|316(6)|326(9)|335(13)|346(6)|355(10)|364(7)|375(5)|384(7)|392(10)|404(4)|413(4)|421(8)|430(12)|438(8)|447(6)|458(5)|468(14)|477(10)|486(7)|496(1)|507(11)|517(9)|527(3)|535(5)|547(5)|556(5)|564(5)|573(9)|584(2)|594(8)|606(5)|621(13)|630(13)|642(10)|653(4)|660(14)|671(8)|682(11)|693(10)|706(9)|716(4)|726(16)|739(1)|749(14)|765(10)|776(3)|788(12)|804(5)|812(10)|823(5)|835(2)|855(15)|865(4)|874(12)|883(11)|893(3)|902(9)|913(8)|923(11)|933(8)|943(12)|958(8)|968(9)|978(2)|992(1)|1000(1)|1008(9)|1016(12)|1027(9)|1038(7)|1046(9)|1055(2)|1066(4)|1077(4)|1087(14)|1098(17)|1108(14)|1118(9)|1133(11)|1142(7)|1151(9)|1163(3)|1172(4)|1180(11)|1199(7) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_i1d2tytm& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_x4sj7yjt" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder=" ; 0" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 45 Early life Let's start with your early life. You grew up in Lithonia. Cleland recalls growing up in Lithonia, Georgia, just after WWII. Cleland praises his father, a traveling salesman, Navy man, and truck driver in the CCC, and his mother, a secretary. He discusses attending the Holy Trinity School and Lithonia Methodist Church. Cleland also talks about the impact of his extended family and the neighborhood boys who taught him to play sports, and he mentions going to Stetson University, where he was placed in remedial English classes. athletics ; college ; Commercial Carrier Corporation (CCC) ; education ; family ; father ; Little Five Points ; school 17 895 Intro to politics The one political thing that really injected itself into my world was the 1960 television debate between Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Cleland discusses Georgia's progressive voting laws, and political issues of the '50s and '60s, including the state sales tax, school integration, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cleland mentions participating in American University's Washington Semester Program, where he interned with Jim Mackey, and learned about Maxwell Taylor and the Vietnam War. He remembers President Kennedy's assassination and the Johnson administration. Cuba ; JFK ; Jim Mackey ; John F. Kennedy ; LBJ ; Lyndon Johnson ; segregation ; Vietnam 17 1883 Mentorship of Richard B. Russell The summer of 1965 also was a turning point for me. Cleland talks about Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell's mentoring of other Senate leaders like Lyndon Johnson, John Stennis, Robert C. Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and Joe Biden. He talks about Senator Russell's meetings with Southern senators and having a change of heart regarding civil rights. civil rights ; confederacy ; legislation ; Richard Russell ; Senate ; Senator Russell 17 2365 Serving in Vietnam So Russell tells us interns that he is very leery, in effect, about the massive land buildup in ‘65. Cleland discusses Pres. Johnson and Gen. McNamara's Vietnam War buildup, and he talks about fighting in Khe Sanh, where the wounds he sustained resulted in losing his right arm and both of his legs. 1st Air Cavalry Division ; LBJ ; President Johnson ; Robert McNamara ; Tet ; Vietnam 17 2796 Georgia State Senate How did I come to run for Georgia politics? Cleland talks about the 1970 state elections, in which Jimmy Carter was elected governor and Cleland became Georgia's youngest state senator. Cleland describes competition between Lt. Governor Lester Maddox's followers and Governor Carter's camp, which Cleland supported. Cleland also describes the roles of Georgia state senators in planning Carter's presidential bid. Hamilton Jordan ; Jody Powell ; Lester Maddox ; Lieutenant Governor Maddox ; Phil Wise 17 3275 Appointment to Administrator of Veterans' Affairs In 1974- in 1974, I ran for Lieutenant Governor. Cleland talks about running for lieutenant governor, working on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, and being appointed Administrator of Veterans' Affairs under the Carter administration. Department of Veterans Affairs ; inauguration ; Jimmy Carter ; President Carter ; Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee 17 3670 Heading the Veterans' Administration / Recent wars Well, President Carter swore me in as head of the VA. March 2, 1977, we had a ceremony in the Oval Office. Cleland talks about managing the VA after President Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft dodgers. He also comments on misinformation regarding the wars in Iraq and Vietnam, and discusses fighting terrorist groups in the Middle East. amnesty ; Bin Laden ; draft dodgers ; Iraq War Resolution ; Middle East ; pardon ; terrorism ; wars 17 4036 Challenging issues for Obama and Bush With the commendation of President Obama, Secretary Hillary Clinton, and one of these days probably a brand new Secretary of Defense and a whole new lineup with the military-- Cleland discusses the U.S.'s withdrawal from Iraq, integrating domestic and international intelligence agencies, and ending state-sponsored torture. CIA ; Department of Homeland Security ; intelligence ; Iraq War ; War on Terror ; waterboarding 17 4460 Georgia Secretary of State Let’s get back to politics. You decided to run for Secretary of State. Cleland talks about his decision to run for Georgia Secretary of State and about the office's responsibility to maintain fair elections. Cleland discusses Georgia's transition to computerized voting under Secretary of State Cathy Cox(1999-2007). democracy ; Diebold ; elections 17 4882 Time in the U.S. Senate You were elected three more times and served in that office for fourteen years. Cleland talks about leaving the office of Secretary of State and becoming a U.S. senator after Senator Nunn retired. He mentions his relationship with Georgia's Republican Senator Paul Coverdell and recalls transitioning into the role of senior senator for Georgia following Coverdell's death. Paul Coverdell ; Sam Nunn ; Senate Armed Services Committee ; senior senator 17 5212 The Growth of Republican Party Then George Bush got elected, and the whole world changed. Cleland discusses the national rise of the Republican Party in the early 2000s, when national security became a major political issue. Additionally, Cleland recalls the Republicans' ad campaign against him, the change in the Georgia state flag, and Georgia's transition to a Republican stronghold. He attributes this change to racial divisions and increasing migration from the Rust Belt to Georgia. George Bush ; partisanship ; President Bush ; realignment ; Republican Party ; Republicans ; state flag 17 5644 The Democratic Party's reputation You’re a good friend of President Clinton. Cleland comments on President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, which compromised the integrity of the Democratic Party and contributed to George W. Bush's election in 2000. Cleland draws parallels between voting behavior since Clinton's presidency and voting behavior around the time of prohibition and the Great Depression. He also indicates that Republican voters have become angry about taxation and may make an electoral comeback. Bill Clinton ; economics ; moral voter ; party politics ; scandal ; taxes 17 5993 War in Washington What else, Max? You’re a great man, great public servant. Cleland talks about the animosity between opposing parties in Washington, D.C. and the quality of candidates and campaigns in America. He claims it is up to the public to moderate politics. campaigns ; George W. Bush ; Karl Rove ; political environment 17 6354 Reflections on Cleland's career and legacy If you look back over your career, is there anything you might have done differently? Cleland talks about his regretting his initial support for the Iraq War. He also ponders the importance of leaving a political legacy. Iraq War Resolution ; VA 17 BOB SHORT: I’m Bob Short, and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics, sponsored by Young-Harris College and the Richard B. Russell Library at the University of Georgia. Our guest today is Max Cleland, former Georgia Secretary of State and United States Senator from Georgia, who, during his 32 years of public service, has served in the Legislative and Executive branches of both the state and the federal government. Welcome, Senator Cleland. MAX CLELAND: Well, thank you, Bob. It’s an honor to be with you. SHORT: Let’s start with your early life. You grew up in Lithonia? CLELAND: I grew up in a little place called Lithonia, Georgia ; but the first four years of my life was spent at the corner of – in an apartment complex at the corner of Moreland and Euclid Avenue in a place called Little Five Points. It was called Little Five Points in those days--Inman Park, really. And it’s ironic that the Carter Center was placed about less than a mile from where I spent the first four years of my life. So I can remember when I was about four there was something very sad. My father was off in World War II and stationed at Pearl Harbor after the attack. There was something very sad that happened. And, reflecting back, it was the death of President Roosevelt in the middle of April of 1945. And then there was tremendous rejoicing by the adults, and that was the Victory of Japan day later that year. I think it was in September. And then on December the 8, 1945, my father came home late at night in his Navy uniform, discharged out of the Navy out of Jacksonville, Florida. And our mother said, “Daddy’s home, Daddy’s home.” So he brought me a little red wagon and a pack of crackers. And I remember playing with his ribbons, and I thought they were Dentyne chewing gum because I thought I had – that’s the only thing that I had seen that was like that. And so, I remember it was a night of rejoicing. We went to my uncle’s house, and I was allowed to stay up very, very late with my cousin. My uncle had been in the Marine Corps, and he had come home. So it was an early rejoicing in my life in December of 1945. Shortly thereafter, my father moved us out of the little apartment on Moreland down to his hometown, Lithonia, Georgia--Main Street, Lithonia, Georgia. He bought a house from my uncle, who moved out in the country. Of course, my mother thought that Lithonia was in the country, and it was in the country! It was in the sticks in 1945-46. So I grew up on Main Street, Lithonia, Georgia. That was my first real home. And around me there were a lot of male only children that I played with for the next ten years or so, all of which were older than I was. So I was the youngest guy. I was the guy selected to chase the balls out into the woods and go find them. And I was the guy that was often called upon to play ball, to fight, and to wrestle with and to play marbles and, you know, all that stuff. So that’s how I grew up. I went to Lithonia Elementary and High School. It was all on one campus in those days. Lithonia was so removed from Atlanta and very far removed from the seat of power, which was DeKalb County and Decatur. Lithonia was about 20 miles just inland from DeKalb County. The rest was Rockdale County. And so, we had something called the teacherage. It’s where the non-married – in those days, they would call them old maid school teachers. But they lived in the teacherage, which was on the campus of the grades 1 through 12 school. And our little elementary school was built brand new with Lithonia granite. And so, that’s where I went grades one through seven. And then I went to the high school, grades eight through twelve. And so, I had the same principal for 12 years, Mr. W.L. Colombo. And his daughter is now a librarian at the University of Georgia--Claire Colombo. So those were the influential years in my life. I was raised by the Holy Trinity – school and church and home. Home, church, school. School, home, church. All within bicycle distance, all within walking distance, all within a mile of each other. So Lithonia became my hometown. I’m very honored that they have a little street named after me now. It’s not long, but that’s all right. I’ll take it. So I joined – I started going to the Methodist church there, which was just a block or two – really a block from the school campus and several blocks from my home. And so my mother took me there. She was a Methodist. In about 1946, so I’ve been going to Lithonia Methodist Church since 1946. So I did everything that you can do in Lithonia and in that schoolhouse and in that schoolyard and in the church and in the home. That’s where I was raised. It was highly contained, and I grew up in the ‘50s, what the TV program called Happy Days. So it was a time in American life after World War II. We were the successor generation to the – what Tom Brokaw has called the greatest generation. My father came home from World War II, bought that little house on Main Street with the GI Bill. $2700, and it took him eight years to pay it off. So it – he has always been a lesson for me in frugality. It was, you know, use it up, wear it out, make it last, or do without. That was the motto of the great generation--the motto of those who grew up in the Great Depression. So my father worked hard after World War II and finally landed a job as a traveling salesman selling automobile chemicals and waxes in places. He traveled the state of Georgia, routes that I would later travel when I was running statewide for Lieutenant Governor, which I lost in ‘74 ; Secretary of State in ‘82, which I eventually won, and the U.S. Senate race in 1996. But my father was one of the last of the great traveling salesmen of the post-World War II era. As 14, 15 million GIs came home from World War II and were discharged, they had the GI Bill and that was about it. They had to find employment. So my father struggled through the late ‘40s, but then in about 1950 he became a salesman again. He had been a salesman before World War II in part of Roosevelt’s CCCs in 1934, stationed up in Clayton at the Warwoman Dells State Park, which is now a state park, but… SHORT: Also, which is my home town. CLELAND: That’s right. In Clayton. That was his university, out in the woods and driving a truck, resupplying all the camps for the CCC boys, what they called Roosevelt’s Tree Army. And he resupplied – drove the truck that resupplied the camps in North Georgia, Western North Carolina, and Tennessee. So that was his university for about a year. And he came out of that and got a job with Atlanta Linen, and he drove a linen truck. He got up early and was in Covington by 6 a.m.--before 7:00, whatever--put in a full day, and then drove the Atlanta Linen truck back to Atlanta. So he covered a wide swath, and he did that before Pearl Harbor--the Pearl Harbor attack, and then joined the Navy and served at Pearl Harbor after the attack and was discharged. So he made a life for us. And he saved and scrimped and built a house about five doors down up on a hill, which is where I spent my teenage years--the house that my father still lives in now. I own an apartment in Buckhead, but my father lives there and pretty much by himself, although we have day people come in. He’s going on 95 now. My mother passed away two and a half years ago. She was a beautiful lady--a brunette, out of the Northeast Georgia farms. And she came from a family of tall people. And her father, who died in the 1918 Swine Flu – not Swine Flu, but Spanish Flu epidemic--he was tall, and I never knew him. I never knew either of my grandfathers, but I knew my grandmothers and they helped raise me. But my mother worked. She worked while my father was off at World War II, like many women entering the workforce, and she became a darn good secretary. And later, after the war--after World War II--she became a secretary at what used to be called Atlanta Paper Company, now it’s called Atlanta Packaging, and they do the packaging for the Coca-Cola Company. So she worked. My father worked. And my grandmother kept me--kept me there on Moreland Avenue, my grandmother on my mother’s side. Then my grandmother on my daddy’s side kept me during the day while mother and father worked. So I grew up with lots of love, lots of cousins, lots of uncles and aunts. On my mother’s side, they were tall ; and my father’s side, they were stout. In the old country days, they were called stout. So I grew up tall and stout. I was the tallest guy in my high school class. And when I went to Vietnam, I was six-two, 215. So I was tall and stout. But I was very thin in high school. But I, having played with boys older than I was since I was like third grade on, I learned the sports, taught to me by the local men/young boys in the neighborhood--Edgar Abbott, Bill Chatlain, Weiland Davidson and all those--all older than I was. They were all older than I was. And we played ball in each other’s back yards. True sandlot ball--baseball, football, basketball, any kind of ball. If you had a ball, you could get two or three guys together. So--and if you had a ball and a back yard, you could get two or three guys together. So that’s where I learned sports. So by the time I made it into high school, I played eighth grade basketball. By the time I was in the ninth grade, I was the first guy in my class to letter, get a high school letter. I lettered in baseball, first string third base ; I was lead-off hitter for four straight years. By the time I was in the tenth grade, I played varsity basketball. By the time I was a senior, I placed second in the state in tennis singles, won the tennis championship in singles and doubles. Honorable mention All-County in basketball. And, you know, did all those extra-curricular activities that you need to do. So I went down to Stetson University thinking I was really something. Not many people went on to college, but my father had saved enough money and he was out traveling and we lived in a good house. I went on down to Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, never thinking about politics at all, thinking that I might major in physics. That lasted three days. I didn’t have enough math to get into the basic physics class. So the fourth day – this is a true story. The fourth day of orientation week at Stetson they said, " ; Well, you’ve got to put down some kind of major.” So I put down English. I said, " ; I’m good at English.” And so the fifth day I was put in remedial English. So, I had failed the writing sample and the grammar sample at Stetson College English. And so I found out I was bilingual. I spoke Southern and a little English. So I ended up at five 8:00 classes. We were on the semester system. Five 8:00 classes every morning at 8:00, remedial English. And I learned how to read and I learned how to write. It was basic training for this old boy who thought he was some hot stuff. And I found out I wasn’t hot stuff on a college level. And so I worked like a dickens for several years. The one political thing that really injected itself into my world was the 1960 television debate between Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Black-and-white television--we only had three channels: ABC, NBC, CBS. And I would steal away at night and watch those debates. I was 18 years of age. Now, at 18 in Georgia – not many people realize that today, but in those days Georgia was only one of two states where you could register and vote for a President if you were 18 years of age. Later in the ‘70s, that became an amendment to the Constitution, the U.S. Constitution. And now everyone 18 years of age or greater can vote for President. But in those days, in 1960, only two states, and Georgia was one of them. So you became a little bit more aware politically by the time you turned 18. You registered for the draft--hello? And you could register to vote--hello? So I registered for the draft. My father went with me to the Decatur courthouse. I registered for the draft when I was 18, about 1960. Graduated from high school in 1960. I went down to Stetson. But I had no interest in politics. I was totally apolitical. The only politics I had been aware of was that Herman Talmadge had raised – had put together the state sales tax, three-cent sales tax, in the early ‘50s and funded the school systems around Georgia. And Ralph McGill, who was the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, was generally disliked, but I didn’t know why. Now I know it was because he was even-handed in terms of race. But in those days, you still had the county unit system and you had the good old boys and all that crowd that ran the Georgia legislature. Marvin Griffin was Governor, Ernest Vandiver--”No, not one,” you know. And in 1956, the schools were almost shut down, because Vandiver had said, “No, not one.” But ultimately, the Sibley Commission went around holding hearings, and the schools were kept open after the 1954 Brown versus Board of Education decision, which called for, with all deliberate speed, the integration of the school systems. So my education would have stopped in the ninth grade had the Georgia schools been shut down. But as it was, the schools continued to stay open. I got my basic education there in Lithonia, and then I went on down to Stetson. And I had to struggle just to survive. Eventually I became a history major. And one day late in my junior year I saw where Bobby Kennedy was shaking hands with some students from Stetson. I looked in the photo, and I thought – I saw this in the school newspaper--and I thought, " ; How in the world did they get to do that?” Bobby Kennedy by then was a legend ; so was Jack, the President, because they had gone through the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of ‘62. And I had seen those tanks and those artillery pieces from the 101st Airborne and the 82nd Airborne come down Highway 17, which split the campuses of the Stetson University. This was before the interstates. So I saw them en route to Miami and to Key West for the potential invasion of Cuba. And I’m not sure people really realize how close we came to actually invading Cuba. But it was Jack Kennedy who said, in effect, " ; We’ll have a blockade around Cuba, and the Russians should stop there.” And then the Russians planked, and they did stop there. So as it turned out, Kennedy made the right decision, saved South Florida from a nuclear holocaust and us going to war with the Soviets. But I had my ROTC uniform on that day that he went on TV in October of 1962. And I realized for the first time, " ; Whoa, old Maxie Baby might really be out there in the thick of it with these other people.” I said, " ; Oh, my God.” But that was averted. So by the fall of – by the spring of 1963, I had become a big Jack Kennedy fan and a big Bobby – somewhat a Bobby Kennedy fan. He was Attorney General. And so these students from Stetson University had gotten to shake hands with Bobby Kennedy because they were on the Washington Semester Program. I said, “Washington Semester Program? What’s that?” I looked at the school catalogue. It said, “See government in action. Go to American University for a semester.” So I said, “Oh, baby.” So you had to have the head of the Dean of the school--I was in liberal arts--Dean of the school of liberal arts and the head of the history department approve you. So I was going to class with the Dean of the University. So after class that day, I said, “Do you think I can possibly go on the Washington Semester Program?” And he said, “Well, come down to my office.” He looked at my grades from where I had entered Stetson and then the sophomore exit exam, and he couldn’t believe that anybody could have improved that much. So, remedial English paid off for me. So I got to go on the Washington Semester Program. It became an eye-opening, life changing experience. I had not been interested in politics really up to that point, again except for the Kennedy-Nixon debates, and I kind of fell in love with Jack Kennedy. A young guy, a guy of my generation. He was 43, I was 18. He was much closer to my age. And it was a generation – it was time for a kind of a generational changeover. We see that generational changeover now with Barack Obama and the massive generational changeover in America, and in Georgia politics, too. But then it was relatively slight. Jack Kennedy barely beat Nixon. And so, I went to Washington September 10, 1963. And my life has not been the same since. Hubert Humphrey once said that the only cure for politics is embalming fluid, and he ought to know! So, I haven’t had the embalming fluid yet, so I guess I’m not cured yet. But I went to the Washington Semester Program at American University, September 10, 1963, and within a week was hooked. I had attended my first Congressional hearing, courtesy of Charles Weltner, Congressman from the Fourth District out of Atlanta. And then later, of course, it was split due to 1962 Banker versus Carr, one-man, one-vote, and the Fourth Congressional District was split. In 1964, Congressman Jim Mackey ran for Congress there. I became his errand boy. I had a big job: I took out the trash. So by 1965, I had a little office in the Library of Congress overlooking the Supreme Court and the U.S. Senate buildings and the Capitol. I mean, I thought I had made a pretty rapid ascent in national and Georgia politics because I had latched onto a winner, Mr. Jim Mackey. He lost in a very narrow election in 1966, and we can get into that. But by the mid summer of 1965, Lyndon Johnson – and you can just hear him now--say, “I want the interns down on the south lawn.” And somebody says, “Yes, sir, we’ll have the Congressional interns down on the south lawn.” And he said, “No, no, I want all the interns down on the south lawn.” So he invited all 10,000 interns in Washington, D.C.--not just the Congressional interns, but all the interns and all the bureaucracies and agencies in town, as well as the Congressional interns--10,000 interns! We packed the south lawn of the White House. We thought we were big stuff. And here comes Johnson out on the south lawn, President Johnson. But followed – and I’m not sure why he did that, maybe General Maxwell Taylor was in the office and he said, “Come on. Go with me. We’re going to see these young kids out here,” or something like that. I don’t know. But Johnson was followed as he went through the crowd of young people, all 10,000 of us, by Four-Star General Maxwell Taylor. Now, Maxwell Taylor, as a young Brigadier General, had been the first out the door in the Normandy Invasion, which we’re going to celebrate the 65th anniversary coming up June 6 of ‘09. But on that first June 6, 1944, Maxwell Taylor, at about 2 a.m. in the morning, was the first out the door with the 101st Airborne jumping at Normandy behind the line. So Maxwell Taylor had already proven his courage, and he had become the – Truman made him Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the Kennedy family was enraptured with Maxwell Taylor. As a matter of fact, Bobby – one of Bobby Kennedy’s sons is named Max after General Maxwell Taylor. And of course, Max was my name, so, you know. So, I never met General Maxwell Taylor until much later. But it seems to me that moment is like frozen in time where Johnson had it all. He had the biggest majority in the Congress, in the Senate, and in the House since FDR in 1933. He put the hammer to the – pedal to the metal and pushed through so many pieces of legislation. We’re still sorting it all out. But he was stalked by Vietnam. Maxwell Taylor had suggested a build up in ‘61, ‘62, to President Kennedy of our ground forces there. Now, there are those who say that President Kennedy would have handled Vietnam differently. One of his aides wrote a book after President Kennedy was assassinated and said, you know, that President Kennedy had told him that after the election – after the election of ‘64 that he was going to pull the troops out, because McCarthy had warned him that we didn’t need a land war in Asia. Kenneth O’Donnell, I think, was his name. He was one that was very close to the President, one of the Irish Mafia from Boston that Kennedy had with him. But November 19, 1963, by virtue of being on the Washington Semester Program, I’m in the White House. Now, through no fault of my own or no great shakes of my own. But the Washington Semester Program had put together a seminar with McGeorge Bundy, the National Security Affairs Advisor in the White House, November 19, 1963. And after talking to us a little bit, he mentioned that Laos had become a neutral country in 1962. There was a negotiation by the Kennedy Administration with Edward Hammond taking the lead. That proved fatal to ultimately the war in South Vietnam, because that was the beginning of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, North Vietnam through Laos down through Cambodia into Saigon and various other points along the border. So it provided the sanctuary for the North Vietnamese. And the North Vietnamese said later after the Vietnam War was completed, that had we had successfully cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, there was no way they could have won the war in the South. Now, we tried surreptitiously--the CIA, Special Ops, Covert Ops, all kind of Black Ops, every kind of thing in Laos and Cambodia and some in North Vietnam, but it really didn’t work. But I became one of the last people to see the Oval Office under President Kennedy. There was the turquoise rug with the great seal of the United States--Presidential Seal. There was the rocking-back chair. There was the desk--the same Kennedy desk that had been brought to the Oval Office by President Kennedy, given to the American President Buchanan by Queen Victoria made out of wood from a ship--an American ship captured by the British in the War of 1812. So Kennedy had a sense of history. As a matter of fact, the thing he liked most in the White House was the sense of the history, and the thing he feared most was human miscalculation, he said. So Kennedy had a sense of history, and he had a sense of history about Indo-China, too, and the French War there. He had been in the Senate when that happened. Johnson had been in the Senate, too. And he saw the Republicans rise on the backs of the Red Scare, rise on the backs of McCarthyism, and that Communists are now around every tree and the fear and so forth. So, when Bush did all that kind of stuff in the first decade of this century--the 21st Century--it was very reminiscent of the way the Republicans rose to power in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. Johnson was very painfully aware of that. And so, Kennedy is assassinated November 22, 1963. I’m in my dorm at American University. And at about 1:00 I come in my room, headed down to the Capitol to do my research project. Believe it or not, I did it on how a Senate office is run--the administrative assistant right-hand man of the Senator. So, that was my research project. I looked at my roommate, who was on the floor trying to tune in the radio. He said, “The President’s been shot.” I said, “Oh, my God.” We ran down to the TV room and saw Walter Cronkite say, " ; A little after 1 p.m. the President of the United States died.” Oh, my God. Anybody that didn’t live through that period cannot understand it, but I quickly got a cab and went down to the White House. By that time, I was shocked to see black crape already on the White House. I’ve not heard anybody really talk about that, but I got to hand it to the White House staff, they somehow were right on the money. I hated that that was the reason, but… Anyway, I hung around the White House late into the night, and then President Johnson – President Johnson. It was weird to say that. President Johnson flew in on the south lawn with the black crape still on the White House and those eerie yellow lights on the White House--flew in and landed and that began the Johnson Presidency. Ted Sorensen still wrote some of the speeches, but he was gone. Pretty soon all of the Kennedy people were gone, replaced by the Johnson folks. And so in 1965 Johnson had it all, but he was stalked--on that summer day with 10,000 interns out there and the Congress full of Democrats--he was stalked by the Vietnam War. The summer of 1965 also was a turning point for me. About the third week of July I was asked to come over to Senator Dick Russell’s office. I was a Congressional intern--and the woods are full of them in the summer--and I was from Georgia, and I was an intern with the Congressman from Georgia. But I was asked to come and sit at the feet of Senator Russell. It was a two-hour off-the-record chat with Senator Russell. And that’s where I met Buddy Darden. He later became a Congressman from Georgia and a dear friend. So, I came into the Senate Armed Services Committee room, and Russell was there, and so were the young people from Georgia interning mostly in this office. And we sat down. It was understood that it was off-the-record, but I made some little notes anyway. Russell explained that the French had about ten times better intelligence in terms of Vietnam than we did then and that he wished that the elections had gone ahead in 1958 and that Ho Chi Minh had been on the ballot in South Vietnam and he would have won 80 percent and that would have been it. But he said at the time--the summer of ‘65, " ; It is the most perplexing thing ever to face the American people. We’re there and don’t want to be. We’re there and we can’t get out.” That was Russell’s take on it privately. He was very leery of a big land buildup there, and he tried to talk Jack Johnson out of it late one night. I got that from a former Russell staffer. And also Fritz Hollings before he left for the U.S. Senate told me that he was the runner between Russell and Johnson. Russell would write out a note about Vietnam and give it to Fritz Hollings, and Fritz Hollings would run down to Johnson in the White House and communicate to Johnson that way. Russell had been the protégé of Johnson in the Senate. There’s a book out by Robert Caro, who’s the biographer of Lyndon Johnson, and it’s called Master of the Senate, but the real master of the Senate was Richard B. Russell, who taught Johnson all of his tricks. Now, Johnson was wise enough to know that Russell was the man. And so the tapes, the Russell-Johnson tapes show where Johnson is right up in Russell’s face and says, “I want you to be my daddy.” In other words, they were two Southerners, and Johnson wanted Russell to look out for him and teach him the ropes in the Senate. Russell knew the Senate better than any man alive, like Robert C. Byrd today. Russell was also the mentor of Robert C. Byrd. Russell was the mentor of Senators who really wanted to know the Senate. He was the mentor for a generation of leaders: Johnson, Robert C. Byrd, and others--Teddy Kennedy. As a matter of fact, there is a great story where Teddy Kennedy and Robert Byrd are running for majority leader. And Russell is still alive. He’s 70, 71--where Russell is dying of emphysema. And aides would run to the caucus and say, " ; Yes, that Russell is still alive because his vote was for Byrd.” And so ultimately Byrd beat Ted Kennedy for majority leader by one vote, and Russell was still alive. And when Russell passed away, Robert C. Byrd came over to Russell’s office and quietly went into his office and laid one red rose – one rose on Russell’s desk and left. So Russell had a powerful influence on the Senate. Later, Joe Biden, who’s now Vice President of the United States, told me a story. He said when he first came, he was 30 years old. You know, you have to be 30 according to the U.S. Constitution. Biden was just a few months shy of that, and his wife and daughter were killed in a – certainly his wife was killed in an automobile accident, and Biden didn’t know whether to go ahead and take the office or not. Herman Talmadge called him and urged him to take the seat ; Biden had been elected. So Biden comes into the Senate, and he goes over to the old man Stennis. And Stennis by now is Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Russell has passed away. Biden is asked by Stennis. He said, “Why did you run for the Senate?” And so Biden tells the old, Confederate, anti-Civil Rights war horse, “Well, I ran for it because I believe in Civil Rights…” And then he stopped himself halfway through, you know. Now, Stennis was the inheritor of the massively long conference table that Russell had. It was given to Stennis. Now, the end of that story is that when Stennis was leaving the Senate, he called Biden in. Biden. And he tells Biden--he said, “Son, for many, many years, every Monday or Tuesday,” whatever time during the week. “The Confederacy met around that table.” He didn’t say Senators from the Confederate States. He said the Confederacy met around that table. What he was saying was that Richard Russell held 35 votes. You needed 34 to tie and 35 to break cloture, because in those days you had to have 66 – 66 votes to break cloture or bring a filibuster. So the Confederacy – Strom Thurmond, Stennis, Russell, others – could filibuster the Civil Rights Bill. As a matter of fact, the man that holds the record for filibuster time is Strom Thurmond at 24 hours and 18 minutes or something like that. So Biden tells me this story that Stennis said, “Son, every week the Confederacy met around that table.” He said, “Son, I want you to know you’re right and we were wrong.” He said, “I want you to have this table.” So today it’s Joe Biden who has the rights to the old Richard Russell conference table, around which he was the master and around which he mustered the Senators from the Confederate states and fought against the Civil Rights Bill. He used Johnson in a masterful way, and Johnson put forward the 1958 Civil Rights Bill under Eisenhower. But because he, Russell, knew that he couldn’t – he couldn’t do it. Anyway, Russell has a tremendous legacy as the author of the school lunch program and others. But there are so many stories about Richard Russell around the Capitol to this day that you really can’t tell them all. But Dick Russell was very kind to me. So Russell tells us interns that he is very leery, in effect, about the massive land buildup in ‘65. It was that week, the third week in July of 1965, that Lyndon Johnson made the fateful decision, the McNamara fork-in-the-road decision to do the massive land buildup. So Johnson goes on TV and said, " ; We’re going to send the First Air Cavalry Division to Vietnam and all this kind of stuff.” The moment he said First Air Cavalry Division, I knew where I was going because I wanted to serve with the First Air Cavalry Division out of Georgia out of Fort Benning, an all helicopter unit. And I knew that’s where I was going, because I was going on active duty 18 October 1965. I was in the pipeline. I was a young Second Lieutenant ; I was going to the Army, but now I knew I was going to war. And I knew where that war was going to be--it was going to be Vietnam. Ultimately, that’s exactly what I did. The sad part about all that is by the time I volunteered in the spring of 1967 and left my job--my cushy job as a General’s aide here and went to war--to Vietnam, by that time McNamara had already commissioned the Pentagon papers and knew we couldn’t win. That’s a hell of a thing to know while he was sending the rest of us to war. In 1995, when I told--when McNamara’s book came out telling that story, I was in Israel with Shimon Peres, and he said, “Did the McNamara book hurt you?” And I said, “Yes, it did.” As a matter of fact, I was the quote of the day in the New York Times. You know, “If McNamara knew we couldn’t win in April 1967, I wish he would have told me.” But I volunteered, and I ended up in Vietnam in early June 1967. By that time, the North Vietnamese had already made the decision that they would attack in force with everything they had and throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Tet in 1968. Tet is the Oriental New Year ; it’s the Chinese New Year. One February 1968, the North Vietnamese and the VC opened up with everything they had--hundreds of thousands of troops--against the half a million American forces and the Vietnamese forces that were on holiday, because it was Tet. So that battle raged, and the American command couldn’t believe it. Intelligence reports came in from the field saying this massive number is whatever. And the intelligence officer said, " ; No, that can’t be true.” But it was true. So a week into the Tet offensive, the Newsweek magazine had Westmoreland “man on the spot.” It was really American strategy that was on the spot. And five thousand Marines were marooned at Khe Sanh--under siege at Khe Sanh, which is the upper portion of South Vietnam. And the question was is this going to become an American Dien Bien Phu? Is this going to be like 1954 and the French, isolated, under siege, where the bad guys build tunnels and come through and start picking off portions of the friendlies? Well, Johnson told the Joint Chiefs of Staff, " ; I don’t want no damn Dien Bien Phu.” So heaven and earth was moved by the American military worldwide to rescue those five thousand Marines at Kai Son. The First Air Cavalry Division was put in position to be the lead element for that force. And like a fool, I volunteered for that. I tried to get out of it when I realized that the rescue force was so small, but I didn’t figure out that we had B-52s and every other kind of aircraft in the American arsenal on our side. So we held at Khe Sanh. Martin Luther King was assassinated April 4, and I was wounded April 8. It was actually the day that the First Air Cavalry Division broke the siege. But once Martin Luther King was assassinated, that was the news back in America. We were breaking the siege of Khe Sanh, the longest siege of the Vietnam War, but nobody seemed to really care by that point. And a week later, the American base was abandoned and plowed under. So that began for me a powerful sense of meaninglessness about the Vietnam War. I got wounded April 8, 1968, by a grenade dropped by a man getting off the helicopter when we were unloading the radio relay team. I did not know it was his grenade. I certainly didn’t know it was live. I reached down to get it, thinking it might be my grenade--in the woods--it fell off my wet gear and everything. And boom, within a flash, I lost both legs and my right arm and am lucky to be here to tell the tale. A year and a half in military and VA hospitals, and I came back to Georgia December 1969, after testifying before Senator Alan Cranston--freshman Senator Alan Cranston about the lack of the VA healthcare for the returning Vietnam veterans. If that sounds familiar, we’re seeing the same story--second verse, third verse, fourth verse--over with the Afghan and Iraq veterans. Although now so many of them have been sent back and back and back and back on multiple tours that they’re pretty much fried. And what we can do for them, I think--we have to give them love and support. But what we can do for them is we have to counter this whole hell of post-traumatic stress disorder with which about 750 thousand are going to suffer for the rest of their lives, and many of them with traumatic brain injuries ; much less shrapnel in their bodies, lost legs and arms, eyes, portions of their head and so forth. It’s awful. So how did I come to run for Georgia politics? I’m sitting there in December 1969 in my mother and daddy’s house on Main Street in Lithonia, Georgia, really. And everybody says I’m a war hero and all that kind of stuff, but there' ; s no job offers. No concrete jobs at all. No firm job offers at all. No job offers, period. And by the spring of 1970, I realized that I’m not going to get any job offers. I mean, nobody is going to hire a guy with just one hand. And even though I had artificial limbs and I was able to drive my car, which by then I had purchased with a VA grant to use for some of it--I wasn’t going to be hired. So I thought, " ; Well, no girlfriend, no apartment, no future, no job, no hope. Now’s a great time to run for the State Senate." ; How did I decide on the State Senate? I wanted to run for Congress. I wanted to go back to Washington. But by then, DeKalb County had turned massively Republican, as Georgia is today. And I knew I would lose the race for the Congress. But I took a look at the State Senate seat and found that it was possible, I thought, to run in a race and have a shot to win because it was a marginal seat. The incumbent Republican had won just a little bit in the massive Nixon landslide of ‘68. So, I decided to announce in April 1970 – I was going on 28 years old – for the State Senate. Nobody thought I had a chance to win. Nobody, no other Democrat wanted to run in that Senate seat because they thought they couldn’t win. I thought Carl Sanders was going to be the Democratic nominee for Governor. He had been a great Governor before. He was one of my personal heroes. I didn’t know really a guy named Jimmy Carter until the Carter folks began to approach me in the hot summer of 1970 and said in Redan, Georgia, right up the road in DeKalb County still, Jimmy Carter was going to be speaking at a rally. And so, they wanted me to introduce him. Well, I didn’t really know Carter. I didn’t think he was going to win. Who’s going to vote for somebody from Plains, Georgia? Boy, was I ever wrong. So, I agreed to go stand up on my artificial limbs that hot summer night and introduce Jimmy Carter. I met him and he had a white shirt on, and he had that famous – what became later known as that famous grin. Quiet spoken, but intense. Much like Bobby Kennedy, except Bobby Kennedy was the most intense man I ever met in my life. Talk about being wound tight, as they say in Georgia! So Jimmy Carter was wound a little tight, and he was intense. But he was calm and soft-spoken. But he had a passion about him. So, I didn’t think he was going to win. So, Jimmy Carter’s up on a flat-bed truck. There are people out there. It’s hot. And I stand up on my limbs. I’m hot. And it’s in an abandoned service station in Redan, Georgia! I mean, not exactly the place where you start some big part of your life. But that was the first time I met Jimmy Carter. And I said, " ; Jimmy Carter is taking his campaign to the people. People need to be listened to. We have a government that’s not listening to us.” And in my heart, see, I didn’t think Jimmy Carter was going to win. I didn’t say, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the next Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.” I didn’t say that. I had had enough of foolishness, you know. So I said, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, Jimmy Carter.” And he made one of the worst political speeches I had ever heard. He read from prepared text, and he was really god-awful. And I thought to myself off to the side, I said " ; There’s no way this guy is going to win a Democratic primary.” But son of a gun, Carter gets Sanders in the run-off, and Carter wins the Democratic primary runoff and goes on to win the Governorship of Georgia, while I went on to become the youngest member of the State Senate at 28 and the only Vietnam veteran. So I’m in there now in 1971, and Carter makes a statement in his Inaugural Address, “I say to you quite frankly the time for racial discrimination is over.” And that lands him on the cover of Time magazine that week, just to say that! And I think it gives Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell the notion that maybe this guy can go places. Now, I didn’t think that. But I saw him quickly begin to buck heads with the Lieutenant Governor, Lester Maddox. Well, Maddox started convening in the Senate, and he deliberately had a gavel that was, you know, kind of pieced together. And when he did the gavel with the television cameras, it shattered. And so I’m thinking, " ; Oh, my God. We’ve got this, too.” So I became quickly a Carter supporter in a Maddox-dominated State Senate. So I was the odd man out. If Carter was for it, Maddox was against it. If Carter was for state reorganization, Maddox was against it. If Carter was for MARTA, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, Maddox was against it. If Carter was for regional planning around Atlanta, Maddox was against it. So I voted for all those progressive Carter things. And soon, me and Bobby Rowan and others became a small band of insurgents. And we tried to change the rules of the Senate--about 1973. We lost. So Maddox takes away all of our – Maddox, Gene Holly, Hugh Gillis, all those guys--take away all of our privileges for Senate offices on the second and third floor. So we get consigned--all 23 of us--24 of us--get consigned to 24 desks down on the first floor with one secretary. That was the penalty for going against – shooting against the king and not killing him. But what happened was that that’s exactly where Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell were plotting for some guy named Jimmy Carter to run for the Presidency, which was insane of course, I thought. But I go down there every day, and I’m pretty much the only one down there. And I mix it up with Hamilton Jordan and Phil Wise, who became the Social Secretary, and Jody Powell, and I’m thinking, you know, what a laugh it would be for Hamilton Jordan to start negotiating with the Russians. What a laugh, you know? CLELAND: But in 1974, I ran for Lieutenant Governor. I said, " ; This is it. I’ve got to up route, like the old army major.” I lost to our friend Zell Miller. Actually, I didn’t lose to him. I lost to Mary Hitt, because Mary Hitt and Zell Miller made it to the runoff. I was one percent out of the runoff for Lieutenant Governor, so I was out. I cried for about a day or two, and then I pretty much forgot it and moved on, went to work on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee for Cranston and Hartke. I think it was there that a young man named Jimmy Carter, having won a bunch of primaries, became President of the United States. I’m thinking, " ; Oh, my goodness alive!" ; Summer of 1976, Cranston communicates to me, “I think Carter’s going to win, and I think you should be head of the VA.” I’m thinking, " ; Oh, my goodness. I’m 34 years of age. I’m here with one pen, one pad, and one desk and one phone. And you want me to be head of the Veterans’ Administration?” So after about three days’ thought, I said, “Well, if you think it’s a good idea, we’ll go for it.” So he clears it with Nunn and Talmadge. Cranston catches Carter in Seattle behind the curtain and says, " ; There’s only two or three things I really want, and one of them is for Max Cleland to be head of the VA.” And Carter says, “I love Max Cleland!” So Jimmy Carter wins election night 1976. January of 1977, I’m in my apartment in Washington, D.C., going to work--driving to work every day to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. And at night in January--I think about January 19 or something like that--the day before the Inauguration--I get this phone call, and it’s Hamilton Jordan. And Jordan says, “The President would like to see you tomorrow about 5:00. Can you be here?” I said, “Yes, sir.” And he said, “Well, I want you to…” I said, “Where should I go?” He said, “Well, I want you to come in through that side gate there, where there is the south lawn.” He said, “I think they called it the south lawn.” Jordan hadn’t even been in power long enough to find out that it was the south lawn of the White House and the west gate or something like that. He wasn’t even sure himself. So I rent this limousine. It’s January 20, 1977. Carter makes his Inaugural Address, alright? I’m down there, and I hear the Secret Service guy saying, “He’s going to do what?” And I come to find out, Jimmy Carter is going to walk to the White House. Holy goodness. Well, I make it double time, you know, back to my apartment--change clothes. And I get in a limo that was driven by a former NCO of Walter Reed. And we start trying to make our way to the White House. Well, there’s barricade after barricade after barricade. And we tell every officer, “My name is Max Cleland.” They don’t know Max Cleland from anything! " ; And I have an appointment with the President of the United States.” They’re like, " ; Yeah, sure, right, yeah, lots of luck.” It took us about an hour just to move through the barricades to convince the D.C. Police people that I really did have an appointment with the President of the United States! And so I came in and camped out in Hamilton Jordan’s office. I’ll never forget, all the walls were stripped bare. The Ford people had cleaned that place out, and Hamilton Jordan, with a remote, was playing with the television, watching the parade on TV. And so I’m thinking, " ; I don' ; t know. It’s hard to believe, it’s just hard to believe.” So about 5:20 on Inauguration Day, January 20, 1977, I get ushered in down the hall. And Hamilton Jordan opens the door, and there is Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office in front of what I consider the Kennedy desk. He had the Kennedy desk put back in there. Johnson had had it removed after Kennedy got assassinated, and Carter had it moved back in. We talked. He says, “Submit your plans to being head of the VA about how you’re going to manage the agency to Hamilton.” And I had some ideas. I could hardly talk. Talk about the shadow of the Presidency or the shadow of the Oval Office? Jimmy Carter was the ultimate good old boy. I mean, I talked to him. I related to him. I mean, he was Governor and whatever. But I related to him. And I couldn’t hardly talk. *Stutters name* I couldn’t hardly say my name! I’m in the Oval Office with the President of the United States, and it’s just us. So I was his official – first official appointment. And on the way out, I said, “Mr. President, this is only my second time in the Oval Office.” He said, “It’s only my second time, too! So that’s how I became head of the Veterans’ Administration. March 2, 1977, I was sworn in as head of the VA--34 years old, first Vietnam veteran, youngest man ever to head the agency, 172 hospitals, 86 outpatient clinics. In those days, it had a budget of about 20 to $22 billion dollars ; now it’s about 50 billion or more. The biggest single presence in America of any other agency other than the Postal Service. So… CRAIG BREADEN: Can we pause, and maybe we’ll – CLELAND: We can pause right there. [Pause.] CLELAND: Well, President Carter swore me in as head of the VA. March 2, 1977, we had a ceremony in the Oval Office. I brought my mother and daddy and my minister from the Methodist church in Lithonia. There was Sam Brown. Sam Brown had led the anti-war moratorium march on Washington in 1970. He was dressed up in a suit. President Carter had appointed him as head of Action Federal Agency. So I approached Sam Brown and I said, “Sam, I see you dressed up in a suit.” He said, “I’ve learned in my years in politics--why offend them with style when you can offend them with substance?” I will never forget that. But Carter had--before I saw him--while he was still at the Capitol, signed the pardon--Presidential pardon for draft evaders. The Veterans’ organizations all called it amnesty. And that got hung around Carter’s neck politically. The VFW, four years later, created a pack. They endorsed Ronald Reagan, and Reagan won. Not because of the VFW, but Reagan won four years later. So in many ways, although President Carter appointed a Vietnam veteran head of the VA and trusted me to do it, we were swimming upstream from the beginning against the Veterans’ organizations. And so I had to – not had to, but I wanted to go out and do the best I could to shake up the VA without tearing it apart. So I conducted multiple visits out in the field to VA hospitals, multiple visits, and some surprise visits. A huge system. The only way you really manage it is through leadership. You can’t even try to manage it, but you try. You try to manage it. And my heart goes out to those trying to handle the VA now with the onslaught of Iraq veterans and Afghan veterans, and that war still is – both those wars are still going on. SHORT: What do you think of those wars? CLELAND: I think that we ought to be out of Iraq tomorrow, but you can’t withdraw that many troops that fast. So I’m glad the President has settled upon 2011 as the date for which American combat troops will be withdrawn, and they should be. We should have never gone into Iraq, although I voted for the Iraq War Resolution. Cheney was saying there were nuclear weapons there, that there were weapons of mass destruction in the country, Saddam was about to use them. Condi Rice was talking about a mushroom cloud. The Administration put on a massive campaign after 9/11 to use Iraq as the sine qua non of the battle against terrorism. The President actually said that. It was not. The embarrassment of the United States is that eight years later after 9/11 in 2001, we still haven’t killed or captured Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist cadre. So, now we will – with a new President and a new Administration, we will focus on withdrawing the troops from Iraq, going after Bin Laden and his terrorist cadre in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The real danger to the United States now is a nuclear weapon in the hands of Islamic militants headed up by Bin Laden. And the Taliban is really a cover for Al Qaeda. Now, we funded Al Qaeda in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Russians. As a matter of fact, we funded every one of our enemies since World War II--we funded Ho Chi Minh, we funded Saddam Hussein, and we funded Bin Laden. Now Bin Laden sees the United States and Western Europe and Christians and Jews as enemies of Islam. He is an Islamic fanatacist, and his cadre is the same. Now, I can see some argument for an anti-American point of view, but I can’t see going out and killing Americans by the thousands and I can’t see just arbitrarily using suicide bombers in Western Europe, Spain, and around just to make a point--just to provide a big news story of you killing a bunch of innocent people. Now, VC did that, NVA did that. I’ve seen that before. I’ve seen this movie before. Going against Bin Laden and his terrorist cadre, you’re going to have to really think about how to fight guerillas. And in that part of the world, you’re dealing with their part of the world, not our part of the world. So it’s going to be a bitch, it’s going to be hard, and I’m afraid it will be long. But you say we have no choice. We cannot let stand, quite frankly, the assault of 9/11 and Bin Laden. Bin Laden must be brought to justice and his terrorist cadre. Now, I understand that there are grievances out there in the Islamic world--against Western Europe, against colonial powers, against America--but that’s not the way to handle it. So, with the commendation of President Obama, Secretary Hillary Clinton, and one of these days probably a brand new Secretary of Defense and a whole new lineup with the military--withdrawing the Army particularly and the Marine Corps from Iraq and rethinking exactly who is the biggest threat against us and dealing with that, you’re going to have a long, long war, but you’re going to have a smarter war. We’ve got to fight smarter. It can’t be Vietnam all over again ; it can’t be Iraq all over again. It can’t be no strategy to win, no strategy to end. It cannot be that. So it’s a real, real nut to crack for the President. The biggest nut to crack, I think, is the economy here. We’re losing hundreds of thousands of jobs each month, and that will continue for another few years. We are going down into a deflationary depression, because of what the President or the Congress does. I think the end of bailouts is soon to arrive, because there won’t be enough money! And some banks are going to fail and some companies are going to fail. Chrysler just declared bankruptcy the other day. I mean, it’s going to be a bear, but in three to four months – three to four years, this thing will hit bottom and we’ll start another 60-year growth cycle. But it’s going to be hell to go through. That and the two wars abroad, I’m telling you, people in Washington have their work cut out for them. But I think that when you commit American forces, the American people have to be with you. And they have to be with you enough to support the wounded when they come home. SHORT: Let’s talk for a minute about our War on Terror here. CLELAND: Well, again, you have to be smarter. You can’t shut down the United States, and what it stands for in the world. You can’t obviate the Constitution. You can’t do that. What was it Ben Franklin said? You know, those who want security over safety deserve neither. What you have to do – and when I was in the Senate, I voted for the Homeland--the creation of the Homeland Security Department, and I was on the 9/11 Commission. And the best recommendation to come out of there is the intelligence czar, or the single point at which all the intelligence comes together. That was really the focus after World War II--after the attack at Pearl Harbor in 1947 for the Defense Reorganization Act, where Harry Truman and the Democratic Congress created the Department of Defense, the Air Force Department, and the CIA. The CIA was supposed to be the ultimate gatherer of all the intelligence. But 80 percent of the intelligence budget is in the Pentagon. So, you’ve got a tail wagging the dog here. So you have a battle among the intelligence community, which is about 15 to 16 intelligence agencies. But you do need some person at the top who' ; s analyzing the strategy. My understanding is that it’s a four-star admiral now--Rhodes Scholar--who I know personally, and I think he’s perfect for the job. And the President will be well-served to listen to him. So I think we’ve got our intelligence house more in order now. We’re getting out of Iraq now. And we’re focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan now. And now I think we realize we have to be a hell of a lot smarter, not just harder. I think we realize we have to coordinate with other agencies--other intelligence agencies, particularly Western European intelligence agencies. We did not really do that. And the FBI and the CIA really weren’t talking to each other before 9/11. Whether they’re talking to each other now or not, I’m not sure. But you do have Homeland Security that is forcing people to talk together that didn’t before talk to each other in Washington. So you’re driving the mammoth bureaucracies together to make better sense of all--of this picture out there for the President, whoever the President is. So I think Obama is going to be a hell of a lot better served than former Presidents. This was tried. President Kennedy tried to--after the Bay of Pigs, to put the CIA back in its original role as an intelligence gatherer rather than as a political operative abroad. But he was killed before he could really run that through. So maybe now we can get that act together. I certainly hope so. It’s not just an intelligence--see, 9/11 was not just an intelligence failure. It was also an intelligence blind spot, because the Bush Administration was all focused on Iraq. They were not focused on – and some missile defense shield or something over the Pacific rather the growth of terrorism--the growth of Al Qaeda, which had declared war on us in 1998. SHORT: We’re often criticized for mistreating terrorists who we have captured. What do you think about that? CLELAND: It’s my view that you--just because they' ; re terrorists or guerillas, you still have to treat them as POWs. That’s my view. Now, that’s basically what has come about after the American people have been embarrassed and the American government has been embarrassed by the excesses of, particularly, the Bush Administration and Cheney, where he got the Attorney General’s office to write memos legitimizing CIA waterboarding and so forth and hid tapes of waterboarding – CIA tapes of waterboarding from the Judicial branch. And that’s obstruction of justice. So, you know, we’re in tough shape now. You’ve got lots to straighten out. The step number one, you’ve got to treat prisoners of war as prisoners of war. I don’t care whether they’re terrorists or guerillas or wearing a uniform ; you treat them as prisoners of war. You treat them as captured POWs. And that’s what – that’s basically what McCain is saying, and I agree with him. SHORT: Let’s get back to politics. You decided to run for Secretary of State. CLELAND: Right. SHORT: Why not Lieutenant Governor or Governor? CLELAND: I didn’t want to tackle Zell Miller again, and Zell Miller did not want me to run against him in ‘81 or ‘82. We became good friends by then. We were always good friends. We became good friends. The Secretary of State’s office was in effect open because Mr. Ben Fortson had passed away. David Poythress had been appointed to that slot by Governor Busbee. Zell Miller decided to run for Lieutenant Governor again. And so, I didn’t want to tackle Zell Miller, and I thought that the Secretary of State’s office would be a much more suitable office for me. It was full-time, it had a good staff, had a good mission, and I liked the way Mr. Ben operated. He was always kind to me, had his door open all the time. That’s the way I wanted to operate. And so I ran for Secretary of State, because I felt that being head of the VA under President Carter for four years gave me a leg up in terms of name ID and recognition, and it did. And versus a man who was a wonderful guy, David Poythress, and he’s running for Governor now and he' ; s got a great shot. But in those days, he was relatively unknown and had been appointed to that position. He had not run statewide. I had run statewide in ‘74, knew where the stumps were, and made my share of mistakes, and was ready to run and win in ‘82. That’s what happened. SHORT: Tell us about the office of Secretary of State. It seems to me that some Georgians don’t know really what the Secretary of State does. CLELAND: Well, they will soon find out. The Secretary of State’s office is the chief elections officer of Georgia. I mentioned Mr. Mackey. Mr. Mackey lost in 1966 when a judge ruled that 1200 over votes on a new IBM Voter-Matic card were thrown out that would have given Mackey the election. They were over votes. They voted – people voted for Mackey, and then they voted for the straight Democratic Party ticket. There is no such thing as a straight party ticket in Georgia anymore. But that was the first computer error that cost an election in Georgia. You move that forward, then you got – in 2000, you’ve got the hanging chads in Florida and so forth. So, Governor Barnes and Secretary of State – SHORT: Massey. CLELAND: No, no, not Massey, but the President of Young Harris now. SHORT: Cathy Cox. CLELAND: Cathy Cox. Secretary of State Cathy decided that Georgia would be the first state in America to go all computerized voting. It sounded like a great idea. But the contract went to Diebold. Diebold had a President that was in Ohio, and he had – he was represented by a Congressman that was on the – when the Republicans controlled Congress--was on the House Committee that--out of which came the Help America Vote Act in 2001-2002. And so this guy argued against the paper ballot and made sure – or he argued against the paper trail for black box voting in effect. And that’s what Diebold wanted. It was the head of Diebold who – well, it was someone from Diebold who in 2002 came in 24 hours before the election was held, after the Secretary of State had cleared all election machines, and put in fixes in Fulton and DeKalb counties to supposedly fix the clock. The clock never got fixed, but a parallel program was installed. That parallel program is now in the breast of the U.S. Attorney General’s Office. Whether or not that program shifted votes on that black box voting, nobody knows. Why? Because Diebold technicians ran the election that year, not Secretary of State election officials. Why? Because the equipment was so brand new that no election official had ever really done that before, not really. So, it wasn’t the Secretary of State’s office that really ran the elections ; it was Diebold that ran the elections. And now we know, because in 2004 it was the head of Diebold that guaranteed Ohio for Bush in a letter--in a fundraising letter. So you don’t know what happened! I don’t know what happened in 2002 in Fulton and DeKalb, not really. And we’re not quite sure what happened in Ohio in 2004. So black box voting now has gotten a terribly bad reputation and should be followed with a paper trail so that a third party – chief elections officers, like the Secretary of State, and all the elections officials in Georgia – should be able to verify a ballot. And poll watchers should be able to verify a ballot without hanging chads, without the secrecy of a black box. You’re just conducting your vote and some private proprietary organization is running elections. So now we’ve learned a hell of a lot about elections. We know now that the Secretary of State’s office in Georgia is in charge of all elections in the state. It is also in charge of all the corporations--registering corporations, and certainly in charge of investments. Not what you invest, but keeping elections – keeping investments public, so that--or the offerings are public, so that the consumer can be aware of what’s going on. So the Secretary of State’s office is a very meaningful office in Georgia. It’s a great office. Doesn’t necessarily get caught up in a whole heck of a lot of politics, but can get caught up in politics if you want to. But everybody in Georgia has an interest in the clean elections process. And God knows I certainly do. And we have a vested interested in who gets elected Secretary of State. SHORT: You were elected three more times. CLELAND: Yeah. SHORT: And served in that office for, what, 14 years? CLELAND: Twelve, yeah. SHORT: Twelve years. And then you decided to resign and run for the United States Senate. CLELAND: Right. I thought that I would be – when Zell Miller told me he was going to run for the second time for reelection after saying that he was not, I said, " ; Fine. Go for it.” So I thought that I would spend pretty much the rest of my life as Secretary of State in Georgia. I thought that was it. I said, " ; You know, God, if you expect me to run for anything else, you’ve got to open the door.” So, I mean, I tried to open the door. I thought about running for Governor, but that didn’t work out. Zell Miller ran for reelection, so that was out. So, I was Secretary of State. And all of a sudden, 1995--' ; 4 or ' ; 5--late, late ‘94--Sam Nunn decides to walk. Sam Nunn decides to retire from the United States Senate. My goodness alive. He shook up apple cart in Georgia. I was there on the floor of the State Senate when Sam Nunn made his farewell statement and announced that he was not going to run for reelection. Well, one week later I’m in. And January 1995 I resigned as Secretary of State and ran like the dickens for basically two years for U.S. Senate. My potential opponent in the Democratic primary was Buddy Darden, who I had met in Dick Russell’s office in the summer of ‘65. Buddy had already lost the seat in the Congress by then, and I was better known than Buddy and I thought I was in a better position. So Buddy stayed out of it. In many ways, he cleared the way for me to run and win. I ran against Guy Millner, a self-funder as they say in American politics today. He spent 13½ million. I spent three. And I won by 30,000 votes in ‘96. Clinton being on the ballot helped. There’s no question about that, because by that time there was a big gender gap. Females in Georgia were voting for Clinton and for me. So I won in ‘96 and thought that – and took the Richard B. Russell-Sam Nunn Senate seat that had been hallowed all of my life by those two men. I knew them. I had been in their offices, and I had been in the office of the – I mean, the Armed Services Committee room. And I had said to myself that there’s only one way I’ll go back to Washington, and that is to take Sam Nunn’s seat on the Armed Services Committee. So, I said, " ; Well, I know that' ; s not going to happen, because Sam Nunn is going to stay there forever.” Well, he didn’t. So, I ran. I ran in ‘95 and ‘96 and was lucky to win really, looking back on it. And we really didn’t know whether we had won until the next day, about a little after 9:30 am--the next day when Guy Millner conceded. And I couldn’t believe it. I was the junior Senator from Georgia. Coverdell was the senior Senator. Good man. Coverdell and I had come to the State Senate in the same year, 1970. He sat right in front of me ; I sat right behind him. We actually worked together! Back in those days, moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats actually worked together in the State Senate. So Coverdell and I had a wonderful friendship--relationship. He was Republican and I was Democrat, but we really had a good personal relationship and a good political professional relationship going. And then Coverdell had that brain hemorrhage and died. And before I could say ‘my goodness,’ I was the senior Senator from Georgia. Oh, my God. So I had Dick Russell’s office. I had his phone number. Somebody got out of the archives Dick Russell’s desk. I mean, I put up my picture of me and Dick Russell when I was an intern, you know. It was a picture where I had the classic deer-in-the-headlights look, you know, that kind of thing! I was just 21, you know, and he was the old pro. And so I saw myself as a successor to Dick Russell and Sam Nunn, sitting on the Armed Services Committee and rising in rank and stature for America’s national security, our veterans, our armed services, and I began to travel around the world and see our services. Then George Bush got elected, and the whole world changed. For me, I was up in 2002, and they came after me big time, and especially after 9/11. They converted the whole country and certainly the Congress, for a while--much like a slummiq, you know, mesmerizes that cobra, you know. You know, they just mesmerized the country with national security and all that kind of stuff. Well, I had been an early sponsor of Homeland Security legislation with this Senator from Connecticut, not Dodd but--mental block. Anyway, he became Vice President--a Vice Presidential candidate with Gore. SHORT: I have a mental block, too. But I know his wife very well! CLELAND: Yeah. Well, anyway, we had cosponsored the Homeland Security legislation together when the White House had opposed it. Then the White House flipped, and they said, " ; Oh, yeah, we’re going to take it over as an issue.” And Bill Frist, before--so Bush ran with the war in Iraq and invading Iraq, and Frist, the majority leader, said Homeland Security is going to be our issue. So they came after me big time. Karl Rove came down and recruited Saxby Chambliss. An unknown story about that is that Roy Barnes, in his Reapportionment plan, had – Governor Roy Barnes – had created a district for Chambliss. Chambliss would have run for the U.S. House again because he was rising in stature and power there. But Tom Murphy did not. He wanted to create some other set of Congressional districts. So he froze out a Saxby Chambliss, just like he froze out Newt Gingrich. So it was Tom Murphy, in many ways, who created Newt Gingrich, and Tom Murphy, in many ways, who helped create Saxby Chambliss. Because Chambliss would have never run for the U.S. Senate against me had he not been frozen out in a Reapportionment plan that Roy Barnes couldn’t get over Tom Murphy, the Speaker of the House. So they passed the – the legislature passed the Reapportionment plan. Chambliss is recruited by Karl Rove, and they’re on the way. So Bush comes down against me five different times. Ralph Reed is now the Chairman of the Republican Party in Georgia. So you’ve got Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, and Ralph Reed all lined up against me. And they put together an ad morphing my view – morphing my face into the face of Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and then me, you know, and insinuating that I was voting against Homeland Security. I did vote against a bunch of amendments by George Bush that would have killed the Homeland Security Bill in the Senate, but they made it look like I was somehow completely out of step with what the people of Georgia wanted. At any rate, Ralph Reed mustered – and then the flaggers, the people who were pissed off with Roy Barnes and pissed off at the Democrats, because Barnes and the legislature changed the flag. Ralph Reed did a poll and found that for white males this issue came off the charts. So they went after registering white males. Only white males, not white females but white males, particularly in South Georgia. And the weekend before the election Reed put together and marched out 10,000 volunteers, and the President came to Savannah. And they fanned out throughout South Georgia and flipped 40 counties in South Georgia alone from Democrat to Republican. Barnes lost, I lost, Speaker of the House lost, many members of the House and Senate lost who had voted for the flag. And that was the end of Democratic domination of Georgia politics for more than a century. Now Georgia politics is dominated by Republicans--Republican Governor, Republican Lieutenant Governor, Republican Speaker of the House, Republican Committee Chairman--each body. And so – and basically you have a Republican state now. SHORT: Why is that? CLELAND: I think Georgia was going Republican. More and more people were voting in the Republican primary, and I think more and more Republicans moved here from the Northeast and the Midwest. They moved to – they fleshed out the Republican donut around Atlanta, so that’s where you see the massive Republican gains--counties like Cherokee and Forsyth and down south of Atlanta in Fayette County. The percentages of Republican votes on Election Day continue to go up, and the percentages of Democratic votes on Election Day continue to go down. If you really want to see it, you can see the last Presidential election in 2008 where the Democrats got 47 percent. Obama got 47 percent. McCain got 53. That was the high watermark of black turnout, which was about 30 percent of the total vote. That was the high watermark of Democratic performance in the state of Georgia. About 80 percent of the white people vote Republican, and well over 90 percent of the black people vote Democrat. So you’re split now along racial lines in Georgia. And as long as you’re split along racial lines in Georgia, Democrats lose statewide. So, the question is now with the tremendous turmoil and the loss of jobs in Georgia, what happens in 2010? Maybe the American--maybe the people of Georgia want to go back to the party that brought them their prosperity in the first place. So, I mean, the issue is no longer the flag. It’s my job and my family ; that’s what the issue is. And so the candidate that best appeals for that, I think, has a great chance of being Governor and on down the line, except this state still leans Republican. It’s not a 50/50 state. It’s a 47/53 state in favor of the Republicans. So you’ve got to have a lot of Republicans either stay home or switch by several hundred thousand to the Democratic candidate if a Democratic candidate statewide is going to win. SHORT: You’re a good friend of President Clinton. CLELAND: Right. SHORT: Tell us about your relationship. CLELAND: Oh, President Clinton is the best single politician I’ve ever met in my whole entire life. And it’s not fake with him. He has in his DNA, in his makeup, a heart, a feeling for people. He matches that with his incredible mind, which – a Rhodes Scholar mind--which in someone else would come off as cheeky or brash or smart-alecky. But you match a heart as big as gold--as big as the West. You match a tremendous mind, and you put that into a Southern drawl from Arkansas, and you’ve got Bill Clinton! And so, now, he loves women, likes women, and that’s just the way life is. Now, that ain’t going to change! I will say that Monica went after Bill, as well as Bill going after Monica. That’s the best I know of it. She was determined to earn her presidential kneepads, and she got them. Now, that’s the way that turned out. Now, what happened was by 1998--99, that was the talk of the world. You couldn’t discuss any other subject, no other subject. No newsperson in the world wanted to talk about anything else except Monica and Bill, which gave the Democratic Party as a whole – it left us vulnerable to the charge of being immoral. So you had the rise of the moral voter on the Republican right when they had just lost the Presidential election. And it enabled Newt Gingrich and others to play holier than thou except that they all – that many of them, especially Newt, had feet of clay and had to resign from office themselves, because of such philandering. So it left the voters in 2000 with a choice between Bush, who people thought was the son of George Herbert Walker Bush and would bring a new tone to Washington. Oh, he brought a new tone to Washington, all right. He brought Karl Rove with him. But somebody that they didn’t particularly know versus the Democrats, which looked more and more immoral on the issues of immoral action and so forth. So Bush wins in 2000 based on the rise of the moral voter, the rise of the moral right wing, the rise of the morality radio and right-wing radio and the creation of Fox News in the early 2000s. So they had it all going for them except that the bottom fell out of the economy after the Democrats lost power. And the Republicans took it in the ear in 2008 because of what? The rise of the economic voter! History is repeating itself in so many ways. You had the rise of the prohibition voter in the ‘20s when things were going really well. And prohibition, whether you were wet or dry, whether you were for whiskey or against whiskey, that was the big issue in the 1920s. Then you had the stock market crash in ‘29, October ‘29. And by 1932, nobody could think about whiskey or whatever ; they’re all thinking about, " ; Buddy, can you spare a dime?” And we had a nation with an unemployment rate of 25 percent. So, FDR gets elected and wipes out the prohibition--the Volstead Act, and the Congress repeals that. And we have beer and whiskey that’s legal, and we start taxing it. So now we have the economic voter. When you’re losing jobs by the hundreds of thousands each month now, the economic voter is going to get more and more angry. That’s what Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress have to watch out for, because this anger is going to increase. And anger against taxes, against anything, it takes away consumer purchasing power by the anger at the banks, at the bailouts--just rise in anger. Now, the right wing can feed off of that. Whether it’s successful in three to four years, I don’t know. But it’s a very – it’s going to be pretty ugly out there in two to three or four years. Much more ugly than it is today. But right now your right wing is struggling for leadership in the Republican Party. They are very scattered and very splintered right now. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have a chance to come back. They’ll come back in an anti-tax, anti-Washington, anti-bigness kind of way. SHORT: What else, Max? You’re a great man, great public servant. Is there anything you would like to tell future Georgians? CLELAND: I think--to echo the sentiment of a man I ran across today at lunch--politics used to be fun. Now it’s gotten to be war. I lay that at the feet of Karl Rove and George Bush and Dick Cheney. They created war. They created political war in this country. They’re paying for it now. We are going to withdraw from Iraq ; we’ll pursue the real bandits--Afghanistan and Pakistan--as they cross the borders there. How we heal our land? I think Obama’s trying to do that. I think some members of the Democratic Congress in the House and Senate are trying to do that. But ultimately, the campaigns themselves have to be more than just a money chase and who can put together the most brutal negative ads against someone else. Only the public can do that. The public--the Georgia public in this case--will have to vote against those people en masse--vote against them en masse, who use surreptitious ads and campaign tactics that are not straightforward. There was an effort under McCain-Feingold, which I cosponsored when I was in the Senate, to kind of clean up American politics, clean up some money, clean up some ads and so forth. And now the soft money known as 527s, arguing some particular case can come into any campaign--any federal campaign in America and undercut it and there’s nobody in charge, nobody to blame. So maybe the Internet, maybe iPods, maybe Twitter, maybe whatever, I don’t know ; there’s 50,000 different ways to communicate to the American public now other than just television. But the American people are going to have to take responsibility ultimately for the quality of politics that we have. They can blame those in office. They can blame the government. They can blame whoever they want to. But ultimately, as Benjamin Franklin said, " ; You know, it’s our system.” I mean, a lady came to Franklin after the Constitutional convention in Philadelphia and said, “Mr. Franklin, what kind of government do we have?” He said, “Young lady, you have a Republic if you can keep it.” So it’s up to each generation to keep it. It’s up to each generation, I think, to make America just a little bit better. I think it’s up to each generation to make Georgia a little bit better. Otherwise, why run? Why put up with this foolishness? Why go through all this stuff? I really do believe there was a time, probably – you don’t have to go too far back in the Senate--in Sam Nunn’s day--when there was a certain camaraderie in the Senate. Now, it’s war. I can tell you it’s war. It’s kill or be killed. And what is it? A Republican said, " ; Morality lies on the side of the heaviest guns--the heaviest artillery.” Who’s got the votes in the Senate now? Who’s got the votes in the Senate? Well, right now, the Democrats--it looks like they' ; ve got the votes--60 votes to stave off cloture and so forth, which more and more makes the Republican Senators irrelevant. I don’t think the Republican Party, as hardcore a Democrat as I am, ought to become irrelevant in the Senate or anywhere else. I think there’s plenty of room for argument. Democrats don’t have all the wisdom. But I can tell you it is war in Washington, and Karl Rove and George Bush--George Bush let that happen, and Karl Rove made it happen. They went out to kill anybody that disagreed with them, anybody. And I know that personally. So it breeds kill or be killed. But maybe there’s a little bit higher standard in Washington now. Whether there’s a higher standard in the State Capitol or not, I’m not sure. What I hear about the Republican takeover of the Governorship and the House and the Senate does not please me at all. I mean, I don’t see a bunch of good government types running around down there. So the American people, or the people of Georgia certainly, they’ve got a chance to speak their mind in 2010. And what we have to do--those of us who care about the election process--have to make sure it’s a fair election and one where every ballot is counted. I kind of trust the people more than I do any other entity, because if you count the ballots fairly and throw it out there and count all the ballots fairly and tally them right, the American people are going to be right more times than they’re not. So, we are in the business of self-government. We have a Republic if we can keep it. And for those of us who have fought for it, that means a whole hell of a lot to us. SHORT: If you look back over your career, is there anything you might have done differently? CLELAND: Oh, yeah. Yes. Start with the Senate. I would not have voted for the Iraq War Resolution. That was a mistake. I screwed up. I should have known better. But I went through 9/11. Bush pushed it, brought it right down to the election--the vote itself. He came after me big time. I had grave doubts about the Iraq War Resolution. I knew that the Administration would just check it off, just like Johnson wanted to check it off so he could do what he wanted to do. And Bush did what he wanted to do in Iraq, just like Johnson did what he wanted to do in Vietnam. I still don’t think it really matters, certainly in terms of Vietnam at all, and I’m not sure Iraq has been so permanently changed by our presence there or not. We' ; re in either Afghanistan and Pakistan due to the attack against us 9/11, in which we have to bring some justice to that situation. But otherwise, you know, we keep our guard up but our hand out. I mean, that’s our posture. It’s not a bad posture ; it’s a moral posture, a good posture. It helps the world. And here in Georgia, you know, what’s it all about? Is it all about power? Is it all about office holding? Is it all about campaign contributions? Is it all about a judgeship? Is it all about having your way for a little while? I don’t think so. I think it’s all about politics in Georgia and in this country. It’s all about making a difference so that you can sleep a little bit better at night. I mean, that’s the reason why I participated in it. SHORT: What has been your proudest moment in politics? CLELAND: Probably when I was sworn in as head of the VA under President Carter. There I was young, I was 34, I had my mother and father there, my Methodist minister there. I was in the Oval Office. It was the first President from Georgia. And I’m kind of surprised I didn’t pee in my pants really I was probably so excited! I will never forget that feeling. I still look at my VA days as my finest days of public service, where I did the most good, probably in the shortest period of time. But it’s where I did the most good--made the best contribution. SHORT: Your biggest disappointment? CLELAND: That I voted for the Iraq War Resolution, because I grieve for those kids that have been killed and for those kids that have been blown to hell that I see at Walter Reed. And I grieve for the ones coming back from Afghanistan and Pakistan too. But at least they’re in Afghanistan and Pakistan--going after the bad guys, I mean the really bad guys. Iraq after 9/11 didn’t make any sense. And I have to wonder, Bob – you’ve been around politics for a long time – you have to wonder, if you weren’t just covering your own rear end by doing that, if you hadn’t turned into what you said you were never going to turn into, and that is just somebody trying to hold their own seat, you see the extent to which the people will go. Arlen Spector is kind of a case in point with the old Everett Dirksen line that, you know, " ; When you feel the heat, you see the light.” So Bush put a lot of heat on us, and on me--all of us up in 2002 to vote for the Iraq War Resolution, because if we didn’t then we were going to be unpatriotic. I voted for the Iraq Resolution, cosponsored the Homeland Security Bill, and I was still accused of being unpatriotic and having my picture morphed into Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. So, yeah, that’s my biggest single disappointment, because by that move, I participated in sending young men into war for no clear reason, and that is the one issue that I have to disagree with Johnson on. No clear strategy to win, no clear rationale in the Vietnam War except kill the bad guys, with no understanding of the history behind it. And ultimately, no strategy to get out except ultimately to lose your rear end and get kicked out. That can’t happen. So as a Vietnam veteran--fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I have regretted the Iraq War Resolution vote more times than you can possibly imagine, and yet I cannot try – I can’t dwell on Vietnam and the Iraq War Resolution. I have to move on with my own life and do what I can to help others, especially those who are suffering. I can identify with them. SHORT: How would you like to be remembered? CLELAND: As Secretary of State, I used to go to those – do those tours at the Capitol rotunda, and I would see those busts of people that were famous in Georgia history. And I said, you know--I would say jokingly that, " ; You know, they won’t have to dismember me ; all they’ve got to do is just pour some bronze over me and I’ll be there, you know.” I used to joke about that. I think every politician wants to be remembered in a positive way. I don’t know. I used to think about that a lot. I don’t think about it much anymore. I think more about now just living, trying to live well today and trying to make sure that my daddy is as well off today as he possibly can be. He’s going on 95. I’m not quite sure. I think the impact you make on other people is primarily in their own eyes, and maybe that’s okay. I mean, Churchill said, you know--he said, “History will be very kind to me because I intend to write it.” So I’ll do my share of writing--writing my own history. But I don’t know, maybe as somebody who just – I used the think about the Vietnam War, that the only thing that I could say about myself is I kept faith with my country when it was most difficult to do so. That’s it. I’m no hero and I' ; m not full of courage and all that kind of stuff. And I came back and I tried to do my best, given my circumstances, to try to turn the country around and try to make a little bit of difference for people who had been screwed up in war and who might become disabled in some way or experience trauma. I don' ; t know. I find myself on that side of the ledger more and more, just somebody who survived and who tried to make things a little bit better for those others who have survived. SHORT: Well, to many of us you are a hero. CLELAND: Well, thank you, Bob. SHORT: And we appreciate all you’ve done for your state and the country. CLELAND: Thank you very much. SHORT: And I want to thank you on behalf of Young Harris College and the Russell Library at the University for being our guest today. CLELAND: Thank you very much. It’s an honor to be associated with Young Harris and with the Richard B. Russell Library. The more I think about the life of Richard B. Russell, the more I admire it. And the fact that I was glad to serve in his Senate seat for six years is one of the highlights of my life. Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL220ROGP-079.xml RBRL220ROGP-079.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP/findingaid http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-079/findingaid
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Max Cleland, May 5, 2009
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL220ROGP-079
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Max Cleland
Bob Short
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Officials and employees
State governments--Officials and employees
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Disabled veterans
United States--Veterans
Veterans--Services for--United States
Description
An account of the resource
Joseph Maxwell Cleland first became interested in politics during his Washington Semester Program. In 1965, he was asked by Senator Richard B. Russell to become a congressional intern. Cleland then joined the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Silver Star for valorous conduct in battle. At the Battle of Khe Sanh in 1968, he was severely wounded by a grenade, resulting in the amputation of both legs and his right forearm. In 1971, he was elected as a Democrat to the Georgia Senate. In 1974, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor. From 1977 to 1981, he served as administrator of the U.S. Veterans Administration under President Jimmy Carter. In 1982, he ran a successful campaign for Georgia Secretary of State, and served in that office for fourteen years. In 1996, Senator Sam Nunn retired, and Cleland won Nunn’s seat. He lost his bid for reelection in 2002 to Saxby Chambliss. In 2009, he was appointed by President Obama to serve as secretary of the American Battle Monuments. Cleland discusses the Vietnam War, the role of Georgia's secretary of state, and the current state of the military, both at home and abroad.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-05-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Americus, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
21 minutes
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0027/audio-access" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0027/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ROOT xmlns="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms/ohms.xsd"><record id="00106790" dt="2021-11-10"><version>5.4</version><date value="" format="yyyy-mm-dd"/><date_nonpreferred_format>2013-12-03</date_nonpreferred_format><cms_record_id></cms_record_id><title>Interview with Milton Raven, December 3, 2013</title><accession>RBRL324FPP-0027</accession><duration>21 minutes</duration><collection_id>RBRL324FPP</collection_id><collection_name>First Person Project</collection_name><series_id></series_id><series_name></series_name><repository>Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia</repository><funding></funding><repository_url /><interviewee>Milton Raven</interviewee><interviewer>Angie Singletary</interviewer><file_name></file_name><sync></sync><sync_alt></sync_alt><transcript_alt_lang></transcript_alt_lang><translate>0</translate><media_id></media_id><media_url></media_url><mediafile><host>Kaltura</host><avalon_target_domain></avalon_target_domain><host_account_id></host_account_id><host_player_id></host_player_id><host_clip_id></host_clip_id><clip_format>audio</clip_format></mediafile><kembed><iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_j1qoivd9&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_ytvij5vr" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe></kembed><language></language><user_notes></user_notes><index><point><time>24</time><title>Childhood / Business adventures </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>My full name is Milton A. Raven Sr...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Raven talks about his family history and about growing up in Archery, Georgia. He describes his childhood education, which primarily took place in Plains. Raven talks about his college experience, jobs, and community projects he worked after graduating. He talks about the tourism appeal of Plains and his experience attending a Rosenwald School.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Albany State University;Archery, Georgia;Johnson Home Industrial College;Levi Raven;Plains, Georgia;Ravenwood Apartments;Staley Middle School;Sublime Order of Archery</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>419</time><title>Marriage and Family History </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>My book was basically referring to the community... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Raven describes growing up with five brothers and talks about his family's history in Archery. He recalls how he met his wife in the mid-1940's and his decision to teach. Ravens describes his time in the army as he was stationed in Alaska. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Alaska;Archery, Georgia;church;education;Johnny Raven Jr.;Johnny Raven Sr.;Lilly Raven;Mimmie's Diner;railroad work;teaching</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>753</time><title>Career / Book premise </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Is there anything that stood out in your... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Raven lists inspiring people in his life. He talks about his career as a principal, a job he held for twenty years starting in the early 1960's. Raven talks about his book, which focuses on the history of Archery, Georgia and his family. Raven reflects on the need for an increased sense of community in Archery.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Archery, Georgia;Archery: A Historic African American Community Southwest of Plains, Georgia;childhood;teaching</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point></index><type>oral history</type><description></description><rel /><transcript>No transcript.</transcript><transcript_alt></transcript_alt><rights>Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.</rights><fmt>audio</fmt><usage></usage><userestrict>0</userestrict><xmllocation></xmllocation><xmlfilename></xmlfilename><collection_link>http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP/findingaid</collection_link><series_link></series_link></record></ROOT>
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
II. Americus, Georgia
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0027
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Milton Raven, December 3, 2013
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Milton Raven
Angie Singletary
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-12-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
African American teachers
African American veterans
United States--Veterans
Education
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Archery, Georgia
Description
An account of the resource
Milton Raven was born in Plains, Georgia in 1931 though he grew up in Archery, Georgia as the youngest of five brothers. In this interview, Raven describes his upbringing, college education, work in the Army and his career as a teacher and principal. <br /><br/><br/>This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">Americus, Georgia</a> series.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard B. Russell Library Oral History Documentary Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history collection consisting of interviews conducted for the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies since 2003.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=3&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here. </a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-ongoing
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL175OHD
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL175OHD-007/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Pete Wheeler, June 14, 2006 RBRL175OHD-007 RBRL175OHD Richard B. Russell Library Oral History Documentary Collection OHD-007 Interview with Pete Wheeler finding aid Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Pete Wheeler William Stueck and James Cobb 1:|11(9)|24(10)|36(13)|50(13)|68(9)|76(10)|87(11)|96(10)|106(12)|115(3)|132(8)|149(7)|158(5)|180(15)|191(1)|200(1)|209(13)|223(3)|238(11)|248(5)|258(12)|266(7)|276(1)|289(14)|302(10)|314(11)|324(1)|332(16)|342(7)|355(4)|365(9)|377(12)|389(4)|399(5)|408(14)|419(5)|429(10)|453(7)|462(5)|471(4)|480(9)|492(4)|504(12)|516(15)|526(6)|534(11)|546(1)|556(1)|569(11)|581(11)|595(15)|606(4)|623(11)|636(6)|656(8)|673(5)|682(6)|700(12)|719(6)|729(9)|742(1)|753(7)|762(3)|781(13)|796(7)|805(15)|815(3)|825(6)|837(5)|847(13)|861(2)|871(11)|884(2)|893(13)|904(8)|917(10)|926(10)|935(7)|948(9)|958(10)|970(12)|979(7)|991(14)|1003(4)|1017(3)|1027(11)|1040(9)|1053(7)|1064(5)|1078(2)|1092(1)|1103(8)|1114(5)|1126(4)|1140(3)|1153(14)|1171(10)|1189(14)|1200(9)|1209(18) 0 http://youtu.be/a12N08vyobM YouTube video 11 Introduction Good morning. 17 61 Early life and education I lived in a little town down there, near the University of Georgia--Crawford. Wheeler discusses his hometown of Crawford, Georgia and the historical significance of its name. He remembers attending Emory at Oxford and the University of Georgia, majoring in education, and experiencing various notable events that occurred during his time at the University of Georgia. He comments on his involvement with the ROTC and participation in World War II, as well as his first job in the Office of Price Administration after leaving the service. army reserves ; Crawford, Georgia ; GI Bill ; Office of Price Administration ; ROTC ; University of Georgia ; World War II 17 494 Work in Department of Veterans Services And then, of course, I came to the Department of Veterans Service. Wheeler mentions his army placement and duties during World War II, as well as attending UGA at the same time as future Georgia politicians Carl Sanders and Ernest Vandiver. Wheeler discusses his motivation for working in the Veterans Service during his more than 50 year long career. He comments on the election process and term length for his position as Commissioner of Veterans Services. Wheeler also discusses improvements in medical treatment services and facilities in Milledgeville and Augusta. Alzheimer's treatment ; Carl Sanders ; commissioner election process ; Department of Veterans Services ; Ernest Vandiver ; Georgia War Veterans Home (Milledgeville, Georgia) ; Georgia War Veterans Nursing Home (Augusta, Georgia) ; Herman Talmadge ; Medical College of Georgia ; veterans medical treatment 17 1081 Duties of Department of Veterans Service Your job, in many ways, is to use both state and federal agencies, so we have what we called GI Bills that are passed periodically by the federal government. Wheeler discusses the role of the Department of Veterans Services in veterans' educational training, job training, and medical treatment. He describes the approval process and monitoring of universities' application for educational entitlements from the GI Bill. Wheeler also comments on the Department's involvement in annual projects, among them the creation and dedication of state memorial cemeteries at Milledgeville, Glennville, and Kent in Georgia. GI Bill ; Glenville Cemetery (Georgia) ; job training ; Kent Cemetery (Georgia) ; veterans cemetery ; veterans educational training ; veterans entitlement benefits 17 1395 Applying for veterans benefits / State funding and department expansion As I mentioned a minute ago, no veteran's benefit is automatic. You got to know about it, and then you got apply for it. Wheeler discusses the application process for receiving veterans benefits and the Department of Veterans Services' active role in educating veterans about their entitlements. Wheeler also clarifies the distinction between federal and state funding for veterans services and describes such state incentives as tax reductions or price reductions. He also comments on the expansion of the Department and the services it provides since he began working there. department expansion ; state vs. federal funding ; veterans tax exemption 17 1893 Veteran memorials / Working with veterans from the Civil War up through the Vietnam War Can you talk about the various veterans of various wars that you served when you first came in 1949? Wheeler discusses the creation of the World War II and the Korean War memorials and comments on the process of fundraising contributions. Wheeler also shares his opinion about General George Marshall and mentions Marshall's pre-war life as well as his creation of the Marshall Plan. Wheeler discusses his work with veterans and widows of veterans from the Civil War and the Spanish-American War and comments on the civilian attitude towards Vietnam War veterans. civilian perception of veterans ; fundraising ; George Marshall ; Marshall Plan ; Spanish-American War ; war memorials 17 2469 Women's army participation and women veterans Could you compare a little bit your dealings with veterans from various wars, say since World War II, in terms of particular needs and services. Wheeler discusses the growth of women's participation in the armed forces and the Department of Veterans Services increased response to the needs of women veterans. Wheeler also discusses the benefits provided to women who served in the WAVES and WACS. He also recounts how he met his wife who was a WACS nurse and talks about his children's and grandchildren's education and occupations. minority veterans ; treatment for women veterans ; WACS ; WAVES ; women veterans ; women war participation ; World War II 17 2765 African-American Veterans / Integration of armed forces We are very proud of the fact that the Department of Veteran Services recognized our African American soldiers. Wheeler discusses the early desegregation of veterans' healthcare facilities in Georgia in comparison to the state school system. He mentions his support for the equal treatment of African-American veterans and also comments on Carl Vinson's role in desegregating the army and representing Georgia's military and veteran interests in Congress. army desegregation ; Carl Vinson ; integration ; NAACP ; veteran facility integration 17 3239 Organizational changes in Department of Veterans Services / Partnerships with voluntary veterans associations Could you tell us a bit about the size of your office in 1949 compared to the size of it today? Wheeler discusses the initial location and size of his office in the state Capitol and mentions the benefits of improved departmental training over the years. Wheeler mentions that the Department of Veterans Services is regulated by the merit system of the Civil Service Act. He comments on his close working relationship with the Veterans Administration and the Department's partnership with voluntary veterans associations across the country. American Legion ; Civil Service regulation ; merit system ; political relationshps ; veterans political invovlement ; voluntary veterans association 17 3652 Responsing to veterans' needs, including special cases Does that mean that we actually have more veterans that live in Georgia because we have more military installations than some places? Wheeler mentions his participation on a commission to study the needs of veterans, whose final report has been used as a reference guide for veterans' affairs. Wheeler also mentions the involvement of various state political figures in establishing military bases in Georgia. He discusses Georgia's response to the needs of various group of veterans--among them retirees and active duty wounded soldiers--by building a special Veterans Administration Hospital. Anthony Principi ; Georgia military bases ; treatment for active duty soldiers ; Veterans Administration Hospital ; veterans affairs ; wounded soldiers 17 4110 Relationships with Georgia politicians Could you talk a little bit about your relationship with Jimmy Carter? Wheeler comments on his relationship with Jimmy Carter and Joe Frank Harris while they were governors. He mentions advising Carter against the incorporation of the Department of Veterans Services with other state departments. Wheeler also discusses the importance of maintaining close relationships with people across departments as a way to ensure the representation of veterans interests. Wheeler also mentions his philosophy on spending Departmental money. budget spending ; fiscal conservatism ; Jimmy Carter ; Joe Frank Harris ; political relationships 17 4544 Supermarket of Veterans Benefits During the 1970s there was a transition from essentially a conscript army to a volunteer army. Wheeler mentions the incident of the veterans from Columbus, Georgia as the impetus for the creation of an event aimed at increasing the accessibility of information about veterans benefits. Wheeler comments on the original idea and name of the Supermarket of Veterans Benefits, and mentions the Aflac Insurance Company that was founded in Columbus. accessibility ; Aflac ; Columbus, Georgia ; organizational coordination ; veterans benefits 17 4923 Golf tournament fundraiser for homeless veterans You sponsor an annual golf tournament. Wheeler discusses the original idea and the logistics behind the annual golf tournament fundraiser for the Homeless Veterans Program. He also reflects on the advantage of establishing personal relationships with politicians and legislators as a way to effectively run the Department. fundraising ; golf tournament ; Homeless Veterans Program ; political relationships 17 5228 Truman and atomic bombs / Border crossing policy I'm kind of curious about any thoughts you have about an incident that occurred in 1995 around the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. Wheeler discusses his views on President Truman's decision to drop the nuclear bombs during World War II. Wheeler also comments on the growing importance of National Guard troops in relation to veterans benefits, and he reflects on the border-crossing policies of the U.S. and other countries. He also recounts the story of why the Rose Bowl of 1943 was played at Duke University, as well as some historical anecdotes about UGA alumni Robert Toombs and Alexander Stevens. Alvin Barkley ; atomic bomb ; border crossing ; China ; Duke University ; foreign policy ; Harry Truman ; National Guard ; Rose Bowl ; University of Georgia 17 5838 Conclusion Commissioner that's about all the questions we have for you. Would you like to make any further comments? Wheeler mentions his love for Athens and the University of Georgia. He mentions that Henry Grady--for whom the Grady College of Journalism at UGA is named--was editor of the local newspaper while he was studying there. Wheeler concludes with expressing gratitude for the people he has met while at the University and the pride he feels in being American. 17 Oral History STUECK: Good Morning. It is June 14, 2006 we are in the Floyd Veterans Memorial Building in Atlanta, Georgia to interview Commissioner of Veterans Services Pete Wheeler. My name is Bill Stueck and I am a historian at the University of Georgia, and my colleague Jim Cobb is also a historian at the University of Georgia. We will be asking Commissioner Wheeler questions. The oral history interview is for the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies which is on the campus of the University of Georgia. Good Morning Commissioner. WHEELER: Good morning and welcome. We are happy to see anybody from the University of Georgia. It brings back many fond memories. I lived in a little town down there near the University of Georgia, Crawford. The original Crawford ; much bigger than the Crawford in Texas ; we got a stop light there and they have a blinking light in Texas. You remember Crawford ; let me give you a little about Crawford before we move onto anything else. I am so proud of Crawford. William H. Crawford, you two professors know who he was. He was an ambassador to France and he is the only man that Napoleon Bonaparte ever bowed to. He was a great American. And we have other Crawford' ; s now down in Texas, and I have had an opportunity to kid the President about it. We have twelve more people than they do in Texas, and we are the original. We are proud of Georgia. We have a stop light and they have a blinking light down there. I can go on in detail on that, but that ain' ; t why we are here this morning. STUECK: Can you tell us your date of birth and you have already told us your place of birth? WHEELER: I can tell you this: I am going to quote something from Douglas MacArthur. He had on his wall, while he was over in Tokyo and we occupied Japan following World War II, and I am not going into details, but he had this on his wall. He said, " ; You are as young as your faith, and as old as doubt, and you are young as your self-confidence." ; And " ; you are young as your faith and you' ; re young as your self-confidence. You are old as your fear and I have no fear. You are young as your hope and you' ; re old as your despair." ; I don' ; t have any of them. I am very happy where I am and I have enjoyed every minute of the work that I do here. I was born in Albany, Georgia, Dorothy County, but I grew up and I was raised in the great city of Crawford, Georgia where I just told you a minute ago. STUECK: Can you tell us the schools you attended? WHEELER: Yes, and I might say before I do that, I attended Crawford High School, which doesn' ; t exist anymore. I was president of the Senior Class in 1939. Living there, near the University, I had the opportunity to attend the very first football game played in Sanford Stadium when it opened, named after Chancellor S.D. Sanford. He was Chancellor of the University system when I was there. Harmon Caldwell was president--and living in Athens also gave me the opportunity--Franklin D. Roosevelt came down on the stadium once. A car drove up, he and Governor E.D. Rivers who was governor of Georgia at that time--And I had the opportunity to see the President then and he went on to Barnesville by train and came out against Walter George, who was a U.S. Senator then, and the reason he was against Walter George was he wanted an enlarged Supreme Court in the United States of America--add more numbers so that everything he' ; d do would be Constitutional. Senator George opposed it. I can remember that day when he endorsed another candidate against Senator George and Senator George said these words, " ; Mr. President, I accept your challenge," ; and Senator George won. Senator George was a great man. He lost a son in World War II and is very sympathetic to veterans and very responsible for starting the GI Bill which educated many World War II veterans who would not have had an education had it not been for the GI Bill and education. STUECK: So you graduated from High School in 1939? WHEELER: That is correct. STUECK: And you went straight to the University of Georgia? WHEELER: No, I didn' ; t. I went to Emory at Oxford and then Emory at Valdosta which does not exist anymore. I think they closed it when I left. I transferred as quick as I could to the University of Georgia and graduated there in 1943. While I was there of course World War II started, December 7, 1941. I was at the University and I was taking ROTC and I was in the Cavalry, riding horses with boots. In fact, I fell of a horse in front of the ROTC building over there when we dedicated a memorial to veterans and others fairly recently. It has been a great honor to have been at Georgia. While I was there I was [in] ROTC and in order to remain there we had to sign up to the Reserves in 1942 to complete our education, there at the University. When I graduated in 1943 we were immediately called to active duty. And at that time I went to active duty for the U.S. Army. I had gotten out of the Calvary and I had enough of horses. I remained in the Army until 1946 and then I was in the Reserves and the National Guard and I remained there until 1978. And I retired from the military in 1978. STUECK: Can you tell us what your major was at the University of Georgia? WHEELER: Well, you might say it was ROTC. (laughter) We had to maintain a certain average to stay there, otherwise we would go right into the service and I wanted to make sure I finished ROTC first. It was education, B.S. in education, and later I went to law school here in Atlanta. And while I was working with the Federal Government I went to night school, John Marshall Law School at night. First job I had in 1946 after getting out of the service was with the Federal Government. A government agency known as OPA: Office of Price Administration. That was part of World War II because keeping prices under control--you had to keep--everything was control: price control. I was in lumber enforcement and I had eight states from Florida up to Virginia where we visited and tried to check and make sure that the price of lumber did not exceed the amount that the government allowed. Then when that ended, the price control on lumber and other things ended, we still had rent control. And I was made area rent director for northwest Georgia out of Rome, Georgia, where I lived in a hotel four nights a week and then back in Atlanta that night. And then of course I came to the Department of Veterans Services. I had a good friend that was Governor at the time. I knew him when I was a student at Athens. He was not a student. He was practicing law with his father then. Herman Talmadge. I knew him well and I became associated with his administration then and I have been here--this is my fourteenth term and I am enjoying every minutes of it and I enjoy it because we are helping people. If I was collecting income tax I would have quit years ago or retired, but I am helping people. There is an old hymn by the way that I remember as a child, and I still have it with me and I give it to new members of the staff when they come in and it is " ; Help somebody today, somebody along life' ; s way." ; No, I picked up the wrong one, got the right one now. " ; Look all around you find someone in need. Help somebody today though it is a little neighborly deed, help somebody today. Many are waiting [for] a kind and loving word. Help somebody today." ; Some veterans we are unable to help, but we can listen, and that is very important and try to get them all the benefits to which they are entitled. And no veteran' ; s benefit is automatic. You gotta apply for them and it is our job to help them apply and let them know about it where they can apply for all the benefits they are entitled. We like to point out the fact that we have done quite well in Georgia on veteran' ; s benefits. Compared to other states we have fewer veterans, but we are bringing in more money than five other states that have more veterans. STUECK: Can you--before we get too far away from World War II, can you tell us where you served in World War II? WHEELER: I served mostly in California, training men for combat, and if it hadn' ; t been for the atomic bomb I am sure I would have been in the South Pacific. But we were training people for combat missions, and that was my job in World War II. STUECK: Now you were released in 1946? WHEELER: That is correct. STUECK: Do you remember when in ' ; 46? WHEELER: I believe it March of ' ; 46. STUECK: Ok. But a lot of folks were released earlier than that. WHEELER: We were released at different times, yes. That is correct. STUECK: So, why were you a little later? WHEELER: Well, there is an old Army saying that we used to teach our people, " ; Yours is not to ask why, but to do or die." ; I did not ask why I went out when I was supposed to go out, and I didn' ; t question anything about it other than I wanted to remain in the Reserves, which I did, and I became a member of the National Guard when Governor Vandiver was the Adjutant General. Governor Vandiver, by the way, was a senior when I was a freshman at the University of Georgia, and we were close friends. And he was the campaign manager along with Roy Harris when Talmadge was elected Governor, and Vandiver was Adjutant General when I transferred over into the Guard and remained until 1978. Also, when I was in the University of Georgia Carl Sanders was a freshman, and he was Bulldog Williams' ; s freshman. Sanders was there on a football scholarship his first year, and the freshmen had to wait on the upperclassmen, and he was Bulldog Williams' ; s freshman. Bulldog was a good friend of mine. We would send Carl down to get the Coca-Cola' ; s for us to drink. You notice I did say " ; Coca-Cola" ; --holy water. STUECK: Can you talk a little bit more about what the Commissioner of the Veterans Affairs did in 1949, and I assume it is an appointed position? WHEELER: No, it is an elected position. STUECK: Elected Position. WHEELER: Elected by a board, a constitutional board. We have a seven-person constitutional board. You have to be a resident of Georgia and a veteran, a wartime veteran. And the board elects the Commissioner. And I have been fortunate enough to be elected fourteen times by different board members through the years. STUECK: So it is a four-year term? WHEELER: That is correct. STUECK: And how is the board chosen? WHEELER: The board, the Governor gets one appointment each year, and is chosen the same way as the Board of Regents is chosen, by the Governor. The Governor gets one appointment each year and there are seven members of the board, and it is a constitutional board. And it' ; s working out very well and we think we have the best operation in the nation because we go out and make sure the veteran gets the benefit. Since I have been here, we' ; ve had one major project a year that we have worked on. When I first came in there were ten thousand patients in Milledgeville. It was called then the " ; insane asylum." ; We knew there were many veterans there at Milledgeville, but they were scattered out among ten thousand people. The first thing we did when I got here was to make sure that we identified all the veterans in Milledgeville and then moved them into one building where we could work with them and get them the benefits to which they might have been entitled. As soon as we were able to do that through the Legislature, going through the House and Senate and Governor, we set aside a building at Milledgeville where we did that, which is now a most beautiful facility, one of the beautiful facilities. We have about five or six hundred veterans there now receiving nursing home care and domiciliary care, and we also have the most beautiful Alzheimer' ; s unit in America. The Alzheimer' ; s people designed it where you can walk all you want to walk inside and outside the building and it doesn' ; t look like a prison--it looks like a Ritz Carlton Hotel lobby with beautiful shrubbery outside and there is an entrance where you walk in and out. The Alzheimer' ; s people who are bed-ridden--they can be cared for in a nursing home, because they cannot get out of bed to harm somebody. The walking man or woman with swinging arms could hit someone in the nursing home, and therefore that is the most unmet medical need I think in America today, is the care and treatment of the walking Alzheimer' ; s person, [who is] in a hurry to get there, not knowing where they are when they get there, and then hurry to go on. We have a beautiful unit there in Milledgeville that we are very proud of, and we have recreation for them and we have an outpatient medical care treatment--the VA does that--they come in there to the doctor once a week and we are very proud of it. Now in Augusta during the Sanders administration and then the Maddox administration, we opened the first state veterans nursing home in America, operated by the state to treat the veterans, with federal and state funds to build it. And it is built right across from the Medical College of Georgia. And you get more care there than you get in any VA, well, any hospital in the world, I guess, because the Medical College operates it for us by contract, and the top specialists in that field are through that nursing home every day. It is right across the street from the Medical College of Georgia and we are extremely proud of that. We' ; re also proud of the fact that Georgia is the only state in the Union that does not charge veterans anything--Georgia residents, they have to be from Georgia, legal residents of Georgia and veterans. We don' ; t charge a veteran anything for care and treatment. Every other state does get something out of the veterans for their care and treatment, but we don' ; t in Georgia and most of our funds that we appropriated in the state go to Augusta, where we have about two hundred veterans down there and over five hundred in Milledgeville. STUECK: So your job-- WHEELER: That is one phase of it. STUECK: In many ways, is to use both state and federal agencies, so we have what we call GI bills that are passed periodically by the Federal Government. WHEELER: I am glad you mentioned the GI Bill. The Georgia Department of Veterans Services is a state approval agency for all veterans' ; educational training, and it may come as a shock for you to know that the University of Georgia--where you represent the University of Georgia--we have to approve the University of Georgia and we check there once a month to see that you are doing--we have a check list and we check if you are training veterans at the University of Georgia and any other school in Georgia that trains veterans. We have to approve that and check on it to see that they are getting what they are entitled to. The reason we have to do that, some schools, I won' ; t name any of them now, but they have been prosecuted because the veteran wasn' ; t required to go to school, they would just give them the money. Some people were sent to prison for that. We have a state-approved agency. We are number one in the nation for veterans' ; on-the-job training. We train businesses, we approve businesses all over the state to train veterans and the veteran receives this GI money for being trained for the position. So we are the state approval that is one of our functions here in the Department of Veteran Services, in addition to the nursing home and the domiciliary and the Alzheimer' ; s unit and, as I mentioned a minute ago, we always have one project--at least one big one a year. We built the most beautiful cemetery I think in the world in Milledgeville, a state cemetery with federal funds, one hundred percent federal funds. The land was transferred from the forestry commission over to us. It is on the Carl Vinson Highway near our nursing home in Milledgeville. We have a chapel there with stained glass windows in it pointing up. The architect brought it up to me and it had square windows and I said " ; No, we want them pointed up, give some people an idea where they ought to be trying to go" ; --although we can' ; t tell them--we can point the direction and make them think about it. We have a beautiful lake behind the cemetery, we have a coliseum area, we have an office there and we have a clarion that plays a hundred hymns, and " ; Amazing Grace" ; is the most requested of all hymns to be played during the funeral. Since we have completed that, many veterans have been buried there every day in Milledgeville. We are now working on a new cemetery, establishing a new cemetery at Glenville, Georgia, near Fort Stewart. Fort Stewart as you know is a very active military base and there are a lot of retirees there. And we are establishing a state cemetery there. Last Sunday afternoon, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and I had the honor of dedicating a new cemetery, about forty miles north of Atlanta, [at] Canton. Seven hundred seventy-five acres of land was donated by a wealthy Georgian who served and landed in Normandy on D-Day, Scott Hudgens. Scott came to the office one day and said, " ; I landed in Normandy on D-Day." ; He' ; s a billionaire by the way, and he said " ; I went back over there recently to visit the graves of those who were killed the day we landed," ; which was sixty-two years ago June 6 this year. And he said, " ; I had a vision while I was there and looking out you can see the English Channel, and I have land in Georgia that we can do the same thing with overlooking Lake Allatoona. Seven hundred seventy-five acres of land. Nobody has ever lived on this land, not even Indians. There are streams running through there. The river--the water is as clear as the water you drink." ; It is a beautiful place, we dedicated that last Sunday. It is a beautiful place. We have a project all the time that we are working on and that is what makes it very interesting to be in this work. We are helping people and getting them what they deserve. As I mentioned a minute ago, no veteran' ; s benefit is automatic. You got to know about it then you got to apply for it. That is our job: to make sure that every Georgia veteran gets every benefit, state and federal, that he may be entitled to, and we have been very successful in doing that. STUECK: We try to be a little more specific on the distinction between a federal benefit and a state benefit. Now, you talked about Georgia being the one state where all the expenses for a disabled veteran are covered. WHEELER: That' ; s in a nursing home situation, the state nursing homes, which the federal government pays part of the cost, and we have a contract with them to pay part of the cost, and the state pays part of the cost for the operation. Every other state has one and we just happen to be the only state that doesn' ; t charge. STUECK: Ok, now the Federal Government is when we talk about the GI Bills. We historians tend to focus on education and housing, low cost mortgages and so forth. Can you talk about where the state kind of picks up from what the federal government is doing in terms of funding? WHEELER: Well, we have the same tax exemptions in the state for homes and wholly financed a hundred percent by the VA. One hundred percent disabled veterans--there are many statutes on the state law books that give us the right to give them certain things like hunting and fishing licenses. The driver' ; s license for example, to drive an automobile or a truck, the veteran gets the benefit of a free driver' ; s license in Georgia if you are an honorably discharged veteran in war time service and we approve it. And then the state, they have changed several times who issues the drivers licenses. It used to be the state patrol, but now it is another agency. We approve it and they get a free driver' ; s license. There are many other benefits they get, if you are disabled in any way, as much as ten percent, you are entitled to go into state parks for a reduced fee, and many other state benefits. STUECK: When you talk about all the buildings that you have had a role in being built, were those built predominantly from federal or state funding? WHEELER: Both state and federal. The building as I mentioned before in Augusta, we had Carl Vinson, Congressman Carl Vinson, a great American and Congressman, introduce the legislation and gave state money. We got half of the appropriation for building nursing homes in Augusta and he was expecting that to be built in Milledgeville, his home. And he called me one day and he said, " ; I got the legislation through." ; First, when he called you on the phone, I am talking about Carl Vinson the great American Congressman from Georgia, when he calls you on the telephone, the first thing he would say is, " ; Are you for me or against me?" ; I said, " ; I am for you Mr. Vinson." ; He said, " ; Well do so-and-so then." ; That was the way he started a conversation. If you called him, he would answer the phone, " ; Alright." ; That is the way he would answer the telephone: " ; Alright." ; But anyway he was very upset with me because we went--Carl Sanders was Governor by the way and he wanted it built in Augusta across from the Medical College. Vinson wanted it in Milledgeville, but the governor controlled the state funds that are necessary, so it was built in Augusta. But I told him that the first one we built after that would be in Milledgeville, and we did, we built the Carl Vinson building there where we house the veterans that need nursing care and then later we dedicated one, the Richard B. Russell building. I think the last picture that the Senator had made, when we took him a copy of that, I mean a picture of that building up there to show him. Mr. Vinson passed there one day and passed by it one day and looked at both buildings and called me on the phone said, " ; I passed my building and passed Russell' ; s building this morning and I noticed that my name is in smaller letters than his. Why is that?" ; I said, " ; It will be changed, Mr. Vinson. We will get them both the same size." ; And we did right away, made them both the same size. He was a great American and so was Richard B. Russell and this state benefited from the service of both of these great men. I am happy to say that I am old enough that my uncle went to school with Richard B. Russell at Gordon Military Institute then. The first inauguration I attended was Richard B. Russell' ; s inauguration as Governor. Governor Hardman was going out, a doctor from Commerce, Georgia, and Richard B. Russell had been Speaker of the House and that' ; s the first time I went into the Governor' ; s office and I have tried to remain close there ever since. One Governor told me that he thought I came over here with General Oglethorpe and we established the Veteran' ; s department then, but that wasn' ; t correct, it' ; s been since then. I have enjoyed every minute of it. COBB: Because of that, your long tenure here, could you give us an idea of how large this place was when you came, and some sense of the expansion? WHEELER: Well, this building that you are in now, the twin towers building, was a railroad station when I came here, and the train ran from here to Augusta once a day, went down to Augusta and came back here to this spot. The Capitol at that time was un-air-conditioned, and we worked half a day on Saturday, and we had no merit system, and no retirement system. A lot of things have changed for the better in the years that I have been here and it has been a great pleasure. I enjoy being here every day because we are helping somebody when I go home at night, I think about how many people that we have been able to help today, get what they are entitled to as a veteran from the federal and state government or their families. And we are losing about five hundred to six hundred veterans a month, passing on. That creates work on our field officers. We have field officers all over the state, they cover every county. A hundred and fifty-nine counties and we go into every one of them at least once a month, or at least [we] are available to them. We assist the veteran' ; s widow and we assist with the funeral arrangements. I told you a minute ago about the cemeteries and they have a beautiful place to have a ceremony and we have grave liners already in the ground, and put the marker up after they are buried. And those that want to be burned, I am going to let the Devil do that if it is done at all. I am going to go out the regular way. STUECK: Can you talk about the various veterans of various wars that you served when you first served, when you first came in 1949? WHEELER: Well, it took a long time for the World War II Memorial to come about. It was the last memorial of any importance, just about, built for veterans in Washington. The Vietnam Memorial was built and the Korean Memorial was built there before our World War II Memorial. We just dedicated it last year, which I was very fortunate to be the chairman of the Advisory Commission for that. And we were able to bring in Bob Dole as chairman of the Campaign Committee to help raise money. And I want to tell you a little story about that while I am thinking about it. The first man Bob Dole called was a former Marine from Memphis, Tennessee. When he got out of the Marine Corps, he decided he wanted to get his master' ; s degree in business administration at Harvard. So when he went to Harvard the professors told him he had to do a thesis on how to start a business. And he worked on it hard and came up with it and the professors laughed at him and said, " ; No. You' ; re going to have to redo this, this is impossible you' ; re going to have to redo it." ; He said, " ; No, I am not going to do it, I am not going to rewrite. I am going to go back to Memphis and show you." ; FedEx, Federal Express was the thesis and Fred Smith started the Federal Express and he wrote us a personal check for two million dollars and says " ; I will help you raise the rest of the money." ; Now Fred didn' ; t tell me this, but I understand, and being two professors you can understand this too. I understand slowly every day a double trailer FedEx truck slowly rides around the Harvard campus. (laughter) So he helped us get started well and he helped us raise 192 million dollars and we have a beautiful monument there and I just learned the other day, I have a picture of it in there somewhere. [Gestures to conference room.] Kilroy, somebody discovered, he is there on the backside of the monument, for World War II veterans. For anybody familiar with World War II, " ; Kilroy was here." ; He [Kilroy] is overlooking. It' ; s inside, I will show you it in a minute. Somebody discovered he is engraved in the Georgia granite that is up there right behind the Washington Monument facing the Lincoln Memorial. Kilroy is part of the World War II Memorial. The state of Georgia contributed a dollar for every veteran that served in World War II toward the purchase of this, establishing this memorial. World War II was a great victory for America. We wouldn' ; t have a Washington Monument today or Lincoln Memorial, either one, if we had lost World War II. We freed a lot of people and the German people are now our allies and the Japanese are our allies today thanks to people like George Marshall, to me one of the greatest generals in World War II. General Vandiver, Governor Vandiver now, had the opportunity of spending the afternoon once with General Marshall. It might interesting to people from Georgia to know that General Marshall, before World War II, was stationed in Georgia heading our Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC camps, where young men went to get three meals a day and they established parks and did a lot of work improving the conditions of our state. He was in charge of the CC camps in Georgia before he went up as Chief of Staff. As a sideline I understand, he had a photostatic memory by the way, he was very proud of the fact that he could remember everything that ever happened and everything he ever looked at. He could name every county in Georgia and every precinct and every county just by his photostatic memory. President Roosevelt heard about his photostatic memory. He had met General Marshall. He had called him--this is George Marshall, later Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense--he called General Marshall into the Oval Office. And Roosevelt had a cigarette holder [and said], " ; Hello, George, old boy. Have a seat over there George." ; General Marshall stood at attention in front of the President, at attention, and looked him in the eye and said, " ; Mr. President, my name is General Marshall." ; He [Roosevelt] said, " ; You are exactly the man I am looking for. You are exactly what I want." ; General Marshall, although he was not given the credit he should have gotten, he led us to victory in World War II. He was Eisenhower' ; s boss, MacArthur, all the rest of them and he was a great American and he didn' ; t go to West Point either. STUECK: VMI? WHEELER: That' ; s correct. You are correct, he went to VMI. STUECK: Well, he has gotten plenty of credit from historians. WHEELER: It is about time. He deserves every bit of it. After the war the Marshall Plan, which helped bring our enemies--making friends out of them and they are now our allies, thanks to General Marshall. He was a great American. I don' ; t think you can give him too much credit. He was great. STUECK: I take it from your response to the question about the veterans from various wars that you dealt with, that basically you started with World War II. WHEELER: Yes, we can go on if you want to. STUECK: That is, you didn' ; t have much to do with say veterans from the Spanish American War. WHEELER: Yes we did, in fact something to do with the War Between the States. My buddy there from Connecticut, I tell him the War of Northern Aggression, but it' ; s really the War Between the States. When I came in here we were paying pensions to the widows of the War Between the States, The Civil War. I didn' ; t believe we had that many and I made sure our people went out and checked to make sure. We sent the money to the Ordinary of the County, and the Ordinary of the County delivered the checks to the widows. We had a confederate nursing home when I came in here, and it was for the widows when I was here, or got here, and we took care of the widows even if they were not entitled to anything from the federal at that time. Actually, this department started with the pensions part long before I got here. When I got here there were a lot of veterans of the Spanish American War of 1898 in Spain, when we freed Cuba and we got the Philippine Islands straightened out at that time. We had a lot of veterans from 1898 that were living a long time after I got here. In fact, we had one employee who was a veteran of the Spanish American War. One of our distant relatives, I am told, was an Army Officer in the U.S. Army before the War Between the States and then he became a Confederate General. After the war was over, [he] got his commission back in the U.S. Army and went on to fight in the Spanish American War, General Joe Wheeler. I understand he got excited once when they were fighting the Spaniards and he said, " ; Come on boys, we got the Yankees on the run." ; (laughter) But we kind of lost a little interest in him. He was from Georgia, but he moved to Alabama and became a Congressman in Alabama and there is a little stop over there, Wheeler, Alabama where he lived, beautiful place still open to the public. But I don' ; t think that I was in the active National Guard during that time. I was in the Korean War and also the Vietnam War and I can remember very well, being in uniform and members of my staff being with me in a Howard Johnson here in Atlanta having lunch one Sunday and we were actually insulted. If you walked down the street in uniform people would make fun of you. During that war, they were not treated right when they returned home. Vietnam veterans were never honored as they should have been, but we made sure they got all the benefits, and [are] still making sure they get all the benefits to which they may be entitled. STUECK: Could you compare a little bit your dealings with veterans from the various wars, say since World War II, in terms of particular needs and services? WHEELER: Well, we have a lot of lady veterans now and of course the VA hospitals are now in the process of being remodeled to have more private rooms, new bathrooms, more female doctors. We have a lot of outstanding women who have served in the military. In fact, we have a lady who has been chairman of our board who is in the military and we are very proud of her. She was a sergeant in the Marine Corps. The service has been the same to all of them. We try to treat everybody equally: veteran and non-veteran, veteran and his family, or her family. And we try to do all we can for the widows of all wars, and we have been able to do that. STUECK: Did you have any responsibilities in relation to women who served in the WAC [Women' ; s Army Corps] or the WAVES [Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service] in World War II? WHEELER: Well, my wife. My wife was an Army Cadet Nurse in World War II, she is right there. [Gestures] I met her in a hospital and we have been married since 1949. I think we' ; ll be married until one of us pass on. She is a beautiful lady and we have been in love for many years. We' ; ve been married since 1949 and I think it will last forever. I know it will. She was an Army Cadet Nurse in World War II and her father was active duty military who served the country during that time. STUECK: Did veterans benefits apply to her at that time, in 1949? WHEELER: Yes, but the war was over before she actually got her commission. World War II was over before she got her commission. She worked temporarily with the VA after that, and then she went into public health nursing after that and then our first child was born she has looked after our kids. We have three children. My son is a graduate of the University of Georgia, and also Mercer, and also Georgia State. He has three degrees. He is a general counselor for the Gwinnett Hospital system, (unintelligible) Chip Wheeler. He is an attorney and represents the hospitals in Gwinnett County. There are two large hospitals there, he is their general counsel. We have a daughter, Francis that graduated from Georgia State and Oglethorpe University and she attended the University of Georgia and was a Tri Delt there. She is a teacher in Gwinnett County. She is married to son of Bishop Bevel Jones of the Methodist Church, and they have three fine children, all boys, three boys. One of them is in college, and one is in high school, and one is in grammar school. Then we have another daughter, Jane, who is a teacher also. She was a Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Georgia. She was a Pi Mu, and she has passed on. And her son is over there now as a student at the University and he' ; ll get two degrees this fall, all he needs a PE course. He has an A.B. degree and a B.S. degree, and he plans to go to law school. He was accepted to Oxford, but he is going to go to law school in Athens. And we are very proud of our children and our grandchildren. All three [children], [and our grandchildren] we have five boys and one girl and she is in charge. She is going to Georgia State this fall, Joanna. Veterans of all wars are all veterans, and they are all great Americans as far as I am concerned. We show no partiality to any. You may be interested in this, and I am sure it will be one of your questions perhaps. We are very proud of the fact that the Department of Veterans Service recognizes African-American soldiers, and we were the first state agency to equalize and join together the races in our home in Milledgeville, Georgia. Georgia War Veterans Home in Milledgeville was desegregated. We ended segregation, and we were the first agency even before the University of Georgia. We ended segregation in our department, the first one and I am very proud of that. STUECK: Do you remember the date of that? WHEELER: Not exactly right off hand, I can look it up and tell you, but it was before the school system was desegregated. We desegregated our people first. We are very proud we did. I had four or five members of the NAACP from Milledgeville, Georgia, nice guys, came up to see me one day in my office. They said, " ; We don' ; t want to cause any problems or any trouble. We think that our veterans ought to be treated the same way in our home in Milledgeville as others. We would like to do more for them." ; And I said " ; I agree with you." ; I got the approval of our board to do it, and we were the first ones to do it, and we are very proud of that fact. And I point that out to a lot of people that we are so proud of the fact that we took the first step. Now also the man that introduced the legislation that desegregated Armed Forces was Carl Vinson from Milledgeville, Georgia. He deserves full credit for desegregating the Armed Forces and I was real proud of him for doing it. STUECK: I don' ; t quite understand that point. WHEELER: He was chairman of the Armed Services Committee ; he was also, before they established the Armed Services Committee, chairman [of] the Naval Affairs Committee. In fact, he was chairman of Naval Affairs during World War II and so was Roosevelt, at one time, chairman of Naval Affairs. Vinson was able to do many things that many people don' ; t realize he was able to do. For example, he went in to see Roosevelt one day, President Roosevelt, who had been Secretary of the Navy, and he said, " ; Mr. President, I want to build a Navy Hospital in Dublin, Georgia." ; The President, who was Secretary of the Navy said, " ; Well Carl, what port is that? I don' ; t recall that being a port." ; And he [Vinson] said, " ; ' ; It' ; s not it' ; s in my district." ; He [Roosevelt] said, " ; Well, how are we going to get ships in and out of a place that doesn' ; t have a port?" ; He [Vinson] said, " ; We are going to have an airport there. You are going to build an airport for the Navy Hospital and we are going to fly them in there. It' ; s in my district." ; He was smart enough to include in the legislation--not may but shall--should the Navy ever give that facility up the Veterans Administration shall establish a VA hospital there. And we have a VA hospital in Dublin, Georgia because of that. It was a Navy Hospital first, and they have an airport there in Dublin, GA because of Carl Vinson. I could tell you many more things about him, he was a great American, so was Senator Russell. STUECK: Could you tell us, in dealing with the segregation issue in terms of benefits to African-American veterans in Georgia coming out of World War II, were they administrated--? WHEELER: The same way. Everybody is treated equal on the benefits. STUECK: But is that administrated through the federal system of government completely? WHEELER: Federal and state. Maybe I ought to make myself clear. The state has certain benefits, but our main job as far as benefits are concerned--no veteran is benefited automatic. You got to know about it first and then you got to have some assistance in applying for them. And that is our job ; we have a claims staff that represents veterans before VA rating boards, they have boards. We actually act as their attorney, or representative, before these boards. And we try to convince the board that they meet all the requirements of a certain law, that they are seeking compensation for service connected disabilities or anything else related to federal benefits. We also assist on state benefits, getting all the benefits that they may be entitled under federal and state. But the VA doesn' ; t go out looking for people to give them money ; we do. It is not a gift, they earned it. We want to make sure that the people who earned the benefit that they receive it. We have offices scattered out all over Georgia that actually assist veterans first hand to make sure veterans get all the benefits to which they may be entitled by the federal and state government. And, by the way, we [are] just getting back quite a few new veterans who went overseas last May and they came back this May. We got several thousand new veterans in Georgia. We are meeting with them to see [that] they receive all the benefits to which they may be entitled, in about twenty seven locations over the state. After they have had the opportunity to come home and relax and spend time with their family, we' ; ll attend the first drill and be available to assist them in getting all the benefits to which they may be entitled. The Georgia National Guardsmen who have been in Iraq, and a lot of them have been under a lot of pressure over there, it is very hot over there and twenty-six did not make it back. Of course, we try to assist their families in any way we can for the fact they didn' ; t come back. STUECK: Before the veterans' ; hospital in Milledgeville was desegregated was there a veterans' ; hospital for African-American veterans? WHEELER: Yes. STUECK: There was? Where was that? WHEELER: In Milledgeville. Well, there wasn' ; t one for any veteran when I came in here, as I told you earlier in our conversation. When I came in, there were ten thousand patients in Milledgeville and the veterans were scattered out among the patients. I sent in team of about four people there and spent months there trying to find out who was a veteran, and who wasn' ; t a veteran, and where we could help them. We went in to all veterans regardless of race, class, or anything else and made sure they got all the benefits to which they may have been entitled. We got them separated from the other ten thousand patients where we could see that they got all the benefits they were entitled to. Then a short time afterwards we asked for and received permission from our board to integrate the two together, which has worked out wonderful in Milledgeville [and] of course our other facilities also. STUECK: Can you tell us about the size of your office in 1949 compared to the size of it today? WHEELER: Well, it was probably bigger then than it is now. STUECK: Well, I would be very surprised if it wasn' ; t, but how many people were there? Well, where was your office in 1949? WHEELER: It was in the Capitol, the State Capitol on the ground floor. I had offices around the Capitol here and an office across the street over on seven hundred street. At one time, we had offices in what is now the Georgia State University. In fact, the State Retirement System was started in the lobby of my office. STUECK: How big was your staff in 1949? WHEELER: Larger than now. We had a lot larger staff. I don' ; t recall. I can look it up. We operate with fewer people now than we had in 1949. STUECK: Why? I mean--why has there been a reduction? WHEELER: Because we are getting more service out of the people that are working. We are training them better, and they know what they are doing, and we demand more from them then when I got here. STUECK: Are they, in terms of people--? WHEELER: They have to pass a certain test and all merit system tests--not merit system tests but--before we can represent a veteran before a VA rating board, you have to be certified to do that so we have to train our people to make sure they understand the law and the regulations. STUECK: When did your employees come under Civil Service Regulations? When was that change made? WHEELER: I don' ; t recall the exact date, but I am glad we are under it. We were not under it when I came here--there was no merit system when I came in. I think that the first department of the state government to have any merit system was maybe the Department of Labor at that time, that' ; s mostly federal funded. We get federal funds for our education division. They pay a hundred percent for that. The state approves and we check the schools and on the job training sites. We get federal funds for our cemetery and we also receive federal funds for our hospital, our nursing home and domiciliary operation and Alzheimer' ; s unit. So we have a very close working relationship with the Veterans Administration in Washington. I have had the honor of knowing every head of the VA, meeting them one time or another. We have had many good people heading the Veterans Administration, and it has been an honor to work with them, as well as the Presidents we' ; ve had, and the Governors we' ; ve had. Beginning--you can see over there on the wall the various governors I have been with, all of them great Americans and interested in veterans. Most of them are veterans themselves. COBB: Commissioner, historians are just now starting to realize how important World War II veterans coming back were in terms--they seemed to get much more involved with politics after the war, and I know Herman Talmadge was a veteran.. WHEELER: He was in the Navy. He was in the Navy. COBB: And so was Marvin Griffin and Earnest Vandiver too, for sure. WHEELER: Carl Sanders, Jimmy Carter COBB: So that hopefully translated into a lot of sympathy for what you were doing and your capacity. WHEELER: They are all very cooperative. I have--we have never had a Governor that I didn' ; t work closely with. We got much done for veterans through the years and I am in my fourteenth term now. I expect, good Lord willing, to serve it out. STUECK: Could you talk a little bit about-- WHEELER: I will have sixty years state service at that time and before that, I told you, I was in the federal government. STUECK: Could you talk a little about your relationship with voluntary association such as the American Legion, the VFW? WHEELER: I don' ; t like to refer to them as voluntary. They are a hard working group ; a lot of them are voluntary of course. They devote their time free of charge to hospitals and all. STUECK: How about NGO' ; s? WHEELER: We represent the American Legion in Georgia before the VA rating boards that decide on claims. The State Services Officer for the VFW is a member of our staff and the American Legion also. And we represent other veterans' ; organizations and work with all them. All of them are great organizations. I don' ; t think we would have any benefits today if it wasn' ; t for the veterans' ; organizations all over the country working to see that we maintain them, and lobbying for veterans. All of them are doing great jobs: the American Legion ; the VFW ; the Am Vets ; the DAV: Disabled American Veterans ; Paralyzed Veterans Association ; all of them are doing great jobs for the veterans. And then the Old Reserve Officers Association is called now the Military Officers Association Enlightenment. I' ; m a member of that. I have been a member of the American Legion for sixty years. That is my sixty year plaque over there. While I am looking over there, [gestures] you might see that is Winston Churchill III along the wall with General Myers. Churchill [III] was there for the World War II Memorial dedication when we dedicated it. He was there and he said it was the first time he had been back to America since his mother--her funeral. She was married to Averell Harriman, of course, and her funeral was there in the National Cathedral in Washington. COBB: Commissioner, you were talking about Carl Vinson and of course Richard Russell, just two great advocates for the state and for their constituents, but how has the fact that Georgia does have, let' ; s say, a pretty good share of military installation, used to have more, how does that--has that affected the work your office has done? Does that mean that we actually have more veterans who live in Georgia because we have more military installations than some places? Does that make for a more supportive environment for the military? WHEELER: Well, we rank number nine or ten in the nation in the number of veterans. You mentioned the name of two great Americans when you mentioned the names of Russell and Vinson. I have told you a little earlier I attended Russell' ; s Inauguration when he was Governor. Through Russell I met Lyndon Johnson who was later President of the United States. He established the first steady commission that went in-depth studying the Veterans Administration and the needs of veterans. And we held--he appointed me to that position when he was President--and we held hearings all over the United States trying to find out in what direction we needed to head in the future for the VA. I gave you a copy of the annual report that we presented to the President at the conclusion of that study. I can remember meeting Carl Albert, who was Speaker of the House then, from Oklahoma and others. We held hearings in Oklahoma City and all over the country, New York and other places, Philadelphia. It' ; s been used as a guide since then for veterans' ; affairs. Senator Russell really had a lot to do with making Lyndon Johnson majority leader and later President--a close relationship there. Carl Vinson was one of the greatest men I think that we' ; ve ever had from Georgia. They were responsible for having many military bases in Georgia ; Warner Robins for example wouldn' ; t be there if it hadn' ; t been for Vinson and others all over the state. So, it has been a great trip and I have enjoyed every minute of it, knowing these great people. I told you a minute ago about President Johnson driving a limousine once from Austin down to Johnson City. He decided to tell the Secret Service he was going to drive. So he was driving this limousine fast and State Trooper pulled up next to him, didn' ; t know who it was and came up. Johnson let window down, he said, " ; Oh my, God." ; And he [Johnson] said, " ; Well at least you know who I am." ; (laughter) STUECK: You mention that Georgia is ninth or tenth in total number of veterans. WHEELER: Yes, that is right. STUECK: What number would Georgia be in terms of population, in other words, do we have a disproportionate number of veterans? WHEELER: No, we do not. STUECK: So, it is about average? WHEELER: That' ; s right. Keep in mind we got the largest state east of the Mississippi River, the state of Georgia. We used to go all the way to Louisiana--had Alabama and Mississippi. And if they don' ; t start acting better we gonna take them over again. (laughter) COBB: People have discovered that Georgia is such a great place to live. We get a lot of retirees who come in as veterans. WHEELER: A lot of them are moving in and we are happy to have them. They are good people. It is an honor to work with them. And some of them are now reaching the age where they need the disabilities increase as they get older. And that is what our officers are out in the field are for, to assist them in getting the benefits to which they may be entitled from the federal and state government. And then once the office fills out the application, we have trained people at the VA Regional Office that represent the veteran before the rating board and make a decision on what the disability should be. We have offices located in each of the VA hospitals in Georgia, and there are three of them: one in Augusta, one in Dublin and one large hospital here in Atlanta. And since you mentioned hospitals--we are talking about hospitals. We have the first hospital in America, VA hospital in America, only one up until now where we are taking active duty people who have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are taking care, I say we, but the Veterans Administration Hospital in Augusta, Georgia is taking care of wounded active duty people who haven' ; t been discharged from the services, all branches, Army, Marines, Navy, and the Air Corps., and the Coast Guard, the rest of them all of them are there. The way that came about, about two years ago Secretary Principi was Secretary of Veterans Affairs at that time. It came to our attention that at Fort Stewart there were soldiers there waiting as long as six months to see a doctor, who were in un-air-conditioned barracks without running water. When we heard that we called Secretary Principi and he immediately got with the Secretary of Defense and his people and made available a beautiful place in Augusta, Georgia. Beautiful grounds, beautiful hospital, available only to active duty people of the Armed Services. First it was Army and now it' ; s the others. I had an opportunity to call Secretary Principi and tell him the situation and he immediately acted on this. We helped cut the ribbon for that facility in Augusta and I highly commend the VA of the great job they are doing for these wounded troops down in Augusta. I saw a Lieutenant who was totally blind--had been blinded without legs, without arms, and with other disabilities. I am so proud of the fact that the VA has been able to take active duty people and give them the care and treatment that they certainly deserve. And they are getting good care and treatment there down there at Augusta, Georgia now, and that is a great facility. Once they are discharged, they go back to other parts of the country probably. Some of them are Georgians, but not all of them. [They are] from every part of America because they are all branches of the Armed Forces. That is the first hospital in America, first VA hospital, and the only one now that takes care of active duty people that need hospital care, and they are doing a great job. It is pitiful to see some of these young men that they are having to take care of. But they are getting good care I am glad to say at last. STUECK: We' ; ve talked about a number of personalities in the interview ; Russell, LBJ, could you talk a little bit about your relationship with Jimmy Carter? WHEELER: Jimmy Carter is a good man. I liked him very much. We disagreed on some things. We didn' ; t agree on everything, but I think he probably thought I needed it. We always had a lot of meetings and he was always calling me to pray, and I appreciate that. He wanted to--he did reorganize the state government and the original plan was to take the welfare department, which was a separate department, the public health department which was a separate department and the veterans department which was a separate department and join them all together. And in a very friendly way I told the Governor that we would have to oppose that because we didn' ; t feel that a veteran should be in the lobby with a welfare person. The veteran earned his benefit and he was entitled a special service and special department. I am happy to say that Governor Carter, after giving it much thought and after many people talked to him about it, agreed with us and we maintained the Department of Veteran Services which is a constitutional department same as the Board of Regents--constitutional board rather. The Governor gets one appointment each year and they serve for seven year terms, [they] have to be a veteran of course, and a legal resident of Georgia. We have had very excellent boards, constitutional boards, that govern the Department of Veteran Services and they in turn elect the commissioner to a four year term, which I am in my fourteenth now. I have enjoyed every minute of it and looking forward to--now--we have always had one project underway at all times. We are now working on a cemetery in Glenville where we will open it and have a dedication ceremony approximately next September of next year, ' ; 07. We have new projects going on all the time improving the care and treatment of our veterans and our facilities. STUECK: Would you talk a little about your relationship with Joe Frank Harris? WHEELER: Joe Frank Harris is a great American. I remember when he first came to the Legislature, as a member of the Legislature. I was a close friend of Sloppy Floyd, James Sloppy Floyd was chairman of the Appropriations Committee and was also a full time employee of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was Quartermaster (unintelligible). We were very close friends and I used to spend a lot of time with him, particularly when we had a session legislature. He controlled a lot of the money really. A young man came in one day that had just been elected to the Legislature in Cartersville, Georgia. And I never will forget Sloppy Floyd saying, " ; This boy is going to amount to something one day" ; and sure enough he did. He became Governor and was a great Governor and served two terms. And I served with him eight years and he was a great Governor. His son and my son went to law school together and we are good friends, even today we are close friends. All the Governors have been great people and I have enjoyed my work with all of them. Zell Miller and I are close friends and have been since he was in the Senate. He got elected to the State Senate and I knew him at that time. He was of course Lieutenant Governor, and then Governor, and then Senator, a great American. All of them have been great. STUECK: Could you talk a little bit, in being in the job of Commissioner for so many years, decades, there obviously are peaks and troughs in terms of funding. Could you talk a little about some of --? WHEELER: We have always managed to get along. You have to know the people that make the decisions, and I made it a point to know the people that made the decisions. Most of them very fortunately have been close friends of mine that make the decisions. Even today we are happy to know that the people over there are our friends and most are very sympathetic, all of them are sympathetic with veterans. And we are very proud that we get what we need to operate efficiently and operate the department as it should be operated. We are not extravagant. I am extremely conservative, very conservative on money and other things that are unnecessary to protect the tax payers' ; money. We get full value of the dollar. Our people are well trained out in the field. We have field officers, 41 field officers, over the state and each one receives the training where we can make sure that the veterans in their community get all they are entitled to. We report that to the House Members of that area that he can--that we have isolated--to say--there is an area with a man in Athens for example, at the University of Georgia. He would send letters out to the Senators in that area that he covers, and representatives, telling them how much we were able to do for the veterans of that area during the past year. And tells them also how we compare with states that have more veterans than we do and are getting less than our veterans. Showing him [the Senator or Representative] that the money the state spends for our department is money well spent. We brought in altogether--helped bring into Georgia last year over two billion dollars in federal benefits. That includes hospitalization and education and everything, but over two billion dollars last year. Two billion as compared to about thirty two million in state funds spent. That is spent mostly for nursing home care for our sick and disabled veterans. We never ask for a bonus in Georgia. We' ; ve always thought the money should go to the sick and the disabled, not the well. We have never paid a bonus, and probably won' ; t pay one because we think the money should go to people who need nursing care, who are Alzheimer patients and people like that deserve it, and then a beautiful place to rest when they pass on which would be beautiful cemeteries. We are working on that now. STUECK: During the 1970s there was a transition from essentially a conscript army to a volunteer army. Could you talk a little bit about the significance of that from your perspective in terms of the people that you serve? WHEELER: Veteran is a veteran as far as we are concerned. I can' ; t see any difference really other than one is a volunteer and one is--a lot of volunteers in World War II, not all were drafted. In other wars, they were not all drafted. We had a lot of volunteers in all the wars that we participated in and I commend these young men and women that are volunteering to go into the service. And we are happy to serve them as we were their fathers before them and their grandfathers before them and make sure that they get all the benefits they are entitled to. We don' ; t show any distinction between one war to another war. A war is a war whether it is declared or not. The war in Vietnam for example back in--the first Calvary division was the first large group of soldiers going into Vietnam. They went in from Columbus, Georgia. At one time in the early ' ; 60s, in the early part of the Vietnam War--Vietnam was affected--I mean the Columbus, Georgia residents were more affected by the Vietnam War than any other city in America. We got together with the mayor, and the newspaper down there in Columbus, and the veterans organizations, and the agencies that dealt either directly or indirectly with veterans' ; affairs, about thirty agencies federal and state. We got them all under one roof, not to make speeches, but to bring in--we had the secretaries and the farms there and we had over five thousand people show up one day and we started there the first supermarket of veterans benefits which is now spread national. We have had one a year since then. The reason we had to limit it to one [is because] we have to invite these agencies and we cannot force them to come. We can get them once a year, all agencies and this gets the person called a procrastinator. Pronounce it for me professor, procrastinator. STUECK: Procrastinator. WHEELER: You are right, and a lot of people are procrastinators. For example Social Security Administrator has an office in most of these cities where we go. People put off going there, but if you go just one day between certain hours you get that procrastinator out of his house and he comes over and the social security does a lot of business even though they have an office located in that location. It gets that procrastinator out seeking his benefits. We now give flu shots and blood pressure checks. The VA hospitals have a place for that. We give--drivers licenses have been issued in the past at our supermarkets. The Game and Fish Commission issue fishing and hunting permits. For the veterans who are seeking jobs, we have the U.S. Department of Labor and the Georgia Department of Labor there who assist in that. We also have what used to be the Civil Service Commission which is now Personnel Management, and the federal government has a Navy surveyor assisting veterans in obtaining employment. So that' ; s the reason it' ; s called a supermarket of Veterans Benefits. It goes from hospitalization--we have people from the cemeteries there talking about burial benefits. We have people from the insurance there talking about the veterans' ; insurance matters. We have people from the schools and universities in the location where we go talking about education. We have our state approval agency people there. We have all together about thirty federal and state agencies that are set up to do business in one day, and we always have at least three to five thousand people present at these. STUECK: Who came up with the name Supermarket of Benefits? WHEELER: I give it credit to a fellow who later became--we discussed it together since we are bringing in all these different agencies not just in the field of education, but jobs, hospitalization, burial benefits, insurance, various licenses and all. Later he was editor, one of the assistant editors, of the paper in Columbus. He later moved over to a little insurance company in Columbus which is now known nationally: AFLAC, the duck. I give him credit for helping me get started in the right way with this. And he was with the Columbus paper and shortly after we held the supermarket, he went over with AFLAC, just a small company. It was started by a close friend of Senator Talmadge, John Amos who was from Alabama originally and went to law school. He was a city attorney for Fort Walton Beach before he moved to Columbus to start that little insurance company. John Amos and his son are still there and [his son] is President of it I think now. It is a nationally known company now. STUECK: You sponsor an annual golf tournament? WHEELER: Yes, we have a golf tournament every year to raise money for the homeless veterans. We usually raise forty thousand dollars or more each year. We have been in several locations, right now we are playing in Fort McPherson and before that we were at Eagles Landing, beautiful course there. The VA hospital has a group of people who work with homeless people. They locate them. Some of them are under bridges and doorways. First of all, you need to give them hospitalization and get them well. We give them care and treatment and encourage them to take it. They get them in good shape [and] once they are rehabilitated enough to have a job, they are assisted in finding one and they use this money to pay for transportation to and from their first job, and to pay for clothes, clean clothes, and workable clothes to work in and a place to stay and a place to eat until they are out on their own. About ninety nine percent of them have jobs, otherwise they would be in doorways. We are very proud of this program, Homeless Veterans Program, operated by the VA hospital here in Atlanta. We have another one ; we usually have it in October. I usually hit the first ball, if I don' ; t miss it that' ; s the reason they got the name " ; play it again" ; ; I missed the first ball. You have to keep your eye on the ball never look up--you gotta keep your eye on the ball and then look up and see how far it went, but I make a mistake and look up to see how far it went before I hit the ball, but I play it again. STUECK: When did your golf tournament start? How long have they been going on? WHEELER: About--I' ; d say about fifteen years something like that, twelve or fifteen years. I' ; ve forgotten. I can look it up. STUECK: What gave you the idea? WHEELER: Well, the people at the VA hospital and I were talking about how we could raise money and help veterans, and I agreed to help them sponsor a golf tournament. I was interested in golf back then. I don' ; t play golf much anymore ; in fact, I don' ; t play it at all. To do it right it' ; s a full time job, and I don' ; t have time to do it right. I am able to hit one down the fairway. One a year, I can still do it. We got a VA hospital, I think as a result of a golf course in Augusta, Georgia. At the time George Sancken was mayor of Augusta. He was a member of the Augusta National Golf Club. At that time a Senator from South Carolina, I won' ; t call his name he is gone now, a good man, but he had the hospital set to go, a new VA hospital for Columbia, South Carolina. We knew that the people [who] had made the decision in Washington were big golfers and George Sancken was able to set aside the golf course one day and we brought down the top people, the decision makers, from Washington. We visited Eisenhower' ; s Cabin, he was still living then, but he was living in Pennsylvania. He is still there. They kept full time staff there in his cabin. We went in there and around the mirror were--he and Maimie every place they had ever lived--around the mirror--and bridge tables, he played bridge. His room was a little cubbyhole with one bed in it and a telephone and a mirror overlooking the par three course at the Augusta National. And we went in there and around there was the pictures made all around the time they were married all the way until the time he was in the White House. And then the people that were down there, we played the course, Augusta National. We had lunch and dinner down there. Thanks to George Sancken, who passed on last year I believe. He was mayor of Augusta who was a member. We wound up getting the hospital in Augusta rather than Columbia, I don' ; t know whether that had anything to do with it or not, but we certainly encouraged it during that golf match. So we' ; d be talking about golf and we would go into that. STUECK: Part of business in America just as much as in Japan and Korea, right? WHEELER: I am not familiar with Japan or Korea, but it certainly helps to know the people you are dealing with. It doesn' ; t hurt to get acquainted with them on a name basis, if you want to get anything done. STUECK: I am kind of curious about any thought you have about an incident that occurred in 1995 around the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II ; the controversy over the historical exhibit over the atomic bomb at the end of the World War II at the Smithsonian. Did that--? WHEELER: Saved my life. I was ready to go to the South Pacific and I praise the Lord, I should praise Him every night for dropping it. Harry Truman did the right thing and he saved a lot of American lives and a lot of Japanese lives by dropping that bomb or we would still be over there fighting today. It saved my life and I wouldn' ; t be here today if he hadn' ; t dropped it. In my office I have a picture of the man that dropped it, Paul Tibbets. He was a great American. And he visited here not too long ago--and Paul dropped it and I am proud to say he is a great American in my book and he ought to be honored in every way possible. He is an unusual fellow ; he' ; s a great fellow, a great American. But I' ; m glad he dropped the bomb. Thank God we had Harry Truman there that dropped it. One thing that tickled me about Truman was it took Mrs. Truman ten years to teach him, to teach Harry, to use the word manure rather than the other way. STUECK: There are some other words too ; she had to work with him. WHEELER: He was a great American, Harry Truman was. Thank God he was the President of the United States. Alvin Barkley was a great man from Kentucky. Very few people know that Alvin Barkley, who was Vice President during that some of that time, graduated from school here in Georgia. Did you know that? He went to Emory at Oxford before it became Emory Atlanta. His wife passed away and he remarried. I can remember when five dollars was just a tremendous amount of money. On his honeymoon he spent the first night at the Ansley Hotel in Atlanta and then went down to Sea Island. He tipped the bell boy five dollars and it made the front page tipping so much money. STUECK: Wish we could get away with that today. WHEELER: He graduated from Emory when it was at Oxford, Georgia, well it still is Emory at Oxford Junior College now, but he was a graduate of Emory University. A lot of people don' ; t know that. That is where he got his training, in Georgia. He is a great American, Vice President. COBB: I am curious about the War in Iraq and the obviously the much increased reliance on National Guard Troops. Do you foresee--I mean--back when I was in the National Guard unless you served I think it was six months on active duty for purposes other than training, you weren' ; t really eligible for veterans benefits. Obviously a lot of National Guardsmen are now eligible for benefits they [otherwise] wouldn' ; t have. Would you foresee that because we are clearly going to be relying on these people more, that there is a likelihood that all National Guardsmen will be eligible for more benefits? WHEELER: I would hope so. We would be in bad shape if we didn' ; t have a National Guard and I am very proud of the fact that they are now going down to the border to stop illegal' ; s from coming into this country, some of which could be terrorists. For all we know they all could be, I don' ; t know. I think everybody coming into this country ought to be checked as they are in other countries, as they are checked in Mexico when you' ; re going there. They check you out pretty well. People from South America are checked out pretty well. I know they check them out in Australia. They want to know where you are every night that you are there, and what you are doing there, and what you are going to do there, and how long you are going to be there, and whether or not you are going to work there or not when you go into Australia. I have been there several times. They check you very closely in New Zealand and other countries, China. And China is coming to be a great competitor of ours. I spent some time there, over in China. I am happy [about] the fact they recognize a Georgia product in China, and I have got to show you this. On all the airlines in China, if you fly from Hong Kong to Beijing, that' ; s across the backseat of every airline, that' ; s Coca-Cola, holy water. It' ; s in Chinese and I took one off the back of my seat when I was flying from Beijing from Hong Kong. Coca-Cola is doing well in China. A lot of Georgia products are going into China and we are getting a lot of Chinese products into Georgia, probably too many. But it' ; s a growing country and they check people going in and out of there too you know, and other countries too. COBB: They check you after you are there as well. WHEELER: You are right about that. It is a big country too and a fellow from Atlanta, John Portland, has built a hotel over there in Sang How I believe. We have a lot of interest over there. I never will forget, I visited the American Embassy one time over in Beijing. President Bush Senior was one of the first Ambassadors to China. He goes back quite often I understand. COBB: We haven' ; t talked about Richard Nixon since that was one of his great initiatives in terms of opening up-- WHEELER: Henry Kissinger did a great job as Secretary of Defense and Nixon went to school at Duke as you know, up in North Carolina, a little school up in North Carolina called Duke, which has been in the news lately, they have a soccer team up there. While we are talking about Duke did you realize that the Rose Bowl in 1943 was played at Duke in Durham, North Carolina? Did you know that? COBB: No, I didn' ; t. WHEELER: You know why it was played in Durham? COBB: Probably because they were afraid of-- WHEELER: They attacked at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941 and they were very worried that the attack was going to extend to our west coast including Pasadena. Duke was in the Rose Bowl as I remember, and so they played the Rose Bowl in 1942 in Durham. I have got to say this, in 1943 the University of Georgia from Athens town, played UCLA in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and I was there, and we won. I was still at the University of Georgia and I saw President Caldwell there and told him, " ; I may be a little late. Can you help me get back in school when I get back?" ; And he said " ; Yes, I' ; ll help you." ; I knew the Registrar very well at the University, Uncle Tom Reed. Uncle Tom Reed was a Registrar and he lived on the campus there at the University and he taught Sunday school at the First Methodist Church. I was smart enough to go to his Sunday school class and walk with him over to the First Methodist church on Sunday morning. I lived in Old College which was one of the oldest dormitories on campus at the University. Several of us were the last students to live there then move out of Old College and then the Navy took it over and I don' ; t know what you have over there now. COBB: It is about the home of the Franklin College and Sciences. WHEELER: Well, that is good. It is a great place and I lived in a room that Robert Toombs lived in and Alexander Stevens. Show you how long their room was still there and we moved out of it. Robert Toombs you know had an Oak tree named for him over there. He was an unusual man, number one in his class, but he made the graduation speech under an oak tree. He indulged a little bit too much probably (laughter), but everyone came out of the chapel to hear him speak. Is that correct? COBB: That is correct. WHEELER: You are the professor. COBB: Of course, it was an awfully hot day that may have had a little to do with it. WHEELER: I don' ; t think they had any air-conditioning then. Toombs was a great speaker and there are many a great stories about Robert Toombs as you know. Little Alexander Stevens and I know they had a debate one night and Alexander Stevens said, I mean Robert Toombs, " ; You little drawled up shrimp I could eat you up." ; And he said, " ; If you did you would have more brains in your stomach than you head." ; (laughter) You remember that? COBB: I remember reading about that. WHEELER: They were great Americans. The University is a great place and I would like to go back. STUECK: Commissioner, that is about all the questions we have for you. Jim would you like to make any further comments? WHEELER: Well, let me say this I am happy that I was fortunate enough to live near the University of Georgia at the city of Crawford. And I am glad to see that Crawford has a stop light and the city in Texas Crawford has a blinking light, and we have twelve more people than they have. I am glad I lived there because I got to see the first game played at the stadium, Sanford Stadium. I am proud that I knew Sanford, Chancellor Sanford and lived in Athens while he was Chancellor. He tipped his hat to every lady he saw in the street. Great American, Chancellor Sanford. Harmon Caldwell was the President of the University and Uncle Tom Reed worked on the Banner Herald in Athens when Henry Grady, who the school of Journalism is named after, was editor. He later came to Atlanta after Uncle Tom Reed worked with him on the Banner Herald in Athens before he moved to Atlanta to become editor, I think of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Henry Grady, you have the Henry Grady school of Journalism. First game we beat Yale and I met Catfish Smith that day and he was All-American from the University of Georgia. And of course Frank Sinkwich and I were good friends and there is a picture on my desk of Wally Butts, Frank Sinkwich and I. Sinkwich was the best man at my wedding and we were dear friends. He won the Heisman trophy that year and was athlete of the year from Youngstown, Ohio. I am glad I was there in school when Carl Sanders was a freshman and Ernest Vandiver who was later Governor was a senior. So Athens means a great deal to me and the University does. I am very proud I have a grandson there now who is going to get two degrees in the fall. An AB degree and a BS degree at the same time and I know he will be Phi Beta Kappa, his mother was. And God bless you. It is such an honor to live here in Georgia and be a citizen of the greatest country in the World, the United States of America and I am very proud of our flag and all it stands for and all it represents. It represents the blood of so many of our veterans, and when I pass on and I hope, I' ; m not getting up a crowd to go today, but when I do hope to have the American flag on top of it. And I will be saluting it, laying there saluting it. It is great to be an American, and be proud of it, and stand up for America whenever you get an opportunity, and stand up for our veterans who made it possible for all of us to enjoy the freedom that we enjoy and many of us take for granted as Americans. Thank you. STUECK: Thank You. COBB: Thank You. [End of Interview] Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL175OHD-007.xml RBRL175OHD-007.xml http://russelldoc.galib.uga.edu/russell/view?docId=ead/RBRL175OHD-ead.xml http://russelldoc.galib.uga.edu/russell/view?docId=ead/RBRL175OHD-007-ead.xml
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
105 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Pete Wheeler, June 14, 2006
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL175OHD-007
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pete Wheeler
William Stueck
James Cobb
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
Veterans--Services for--United States
United States--Veterans
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
<span>A Conversation with Pete Wheeler is a discussion, with Dr. William Stueck and Dr. James Cobb, of Wheeler's long career as Georgia's Commissioner of Veterans Services. Wheeler discusses his early life, attending Emory at Oxford and the University of Georgia, and his work with the Office of Price Administration after getting out of the service after World War II. Wheeler discusses the importance of the Department of Veterans Services and explains the duties of the Commissioner of Veteran Affairs. He mentions a specific project he undertook to identify all the Veterans in the former state mental hospital, Central State Hospital, in Milledgeville and to provide the services these veterans are entitled to. Wheeler also discusses his work with veterans from other wars such as the Spanish-American War and the widows of soldiers who had fought in the American Civil War. He explains his wife's experience during World War II and the employment of the rest of his family during the war. Wheeler recalls the desegregation of the veteran's home in Milledgeville and the importance of the Veteran's Administration. Wheeler also comments on his relationships with Senator Russell, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Zell Miller, and Joe Frank Harris.<br /><br />Peter Wheeler was born in Crawford, Georgia on October 19, 1922. He attended the University of Georgia, where he majored in education, and was called to active duty in the army upon his graduation in 1943. He was discharged from the army in 1946, and attended the John Marshall Law School in Atlanta at night, while working for the Federal Office of Price Administration. In 1949 he was named Commissioner of Veterans Services in the Herman Talmadge administration, an office he has held for 14 terms under eleven governors. Mr. Wheeler was president of the National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs in 1964 to 1965, has served on the National Veterans Day Committee, and was Chairman of the National World War II Memorial Advisory Board from 1994 to 2004.<br /></span>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006-06-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
60 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0063/audio-access" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0063/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ROOT xmlns="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms/ohms.xsd"><record id="00106782" dt="2021-11-10"><version>5.4</version><date value="" format="yyyy-mm-dd"/><date_nonpreferred_format>2015-03-05</date_nonpreferred_format><cms_record_id></cms_record_id><title>Interview with Philip Pollock, Jr., March 5, 2015</title><accession>RBRL324FPP-0063</accession><duration>60 minutes</duration><collection_id>RBRL324FPP</collection_id><collection_name>First Person Project</collection_name><series_id></series_id><series_name></series_name><repository>Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia</repository><funding></funding><repository_url /><interviewee>Philip Pollock, Jr.</interviewee><interviewer>Shannon Roy</interviewer><file_name></file_name><sync></sync><sync_alt></sync_alt><transcript_alt_lang></transcript_alt_lang><translate>0</translate><media_id></media_id><media_url></media_url><mediafile><host>Kaltura</host><avalon_target_domain></avalon_target_domain><host_account_id></host_account_id><host_player_id></host_player_id><host_clip_id></host_clip_id><clip_format>audio</clip_format></mediafile><kembed><iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_2nl0z6ur&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&amp;flashvars[localizationCode]=en&amp;flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&amp;flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&amp;flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&amp;flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&amp;flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&amp;&wid=1_s5bdh9f4" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe></kembed><language></language><user_notes></user_notes><index><point><time>58</time><title>Basic training</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>I was born in Joliet, Illinois...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock talks about his upbringing in Joliet, Illinois and his only year at Macalester College before he was drafted into WWII in 1943. Pollock describes being sent to Louisiana for basic training and his subsequent technical training at Louisiana State University before he was deployed to Europe.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>87th infantry division;draft;Fort Jackson;Louisiana State University;Macalester College;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>307</time><title>Experience on the battlefront / The end of WWII </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>What was your most memorable moment... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock describes the fear he felt on the first day of combat with the Germans in WWII. He recalls his feelings on the battlefront and talks about a stalemate that occurred on opposite sides of the Rhine River between the Germans and US soldiers. Pollock recalls being sent home for rest and relaxation and the surrender of the Germans. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>4.2-inch mortar;Brownwood, Texas;General Patton's 3rd Army;Rhine River;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>632</time><title>Returning home (cont.) </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>We had three weeks of training... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock talks about the surrender of the Japanese in 1943. He describes the announcement of Germany's surrender (also known as VE-day) which coincided with the same day he returned home for a forty-five day period of rest and relaxation. He shares that he was eventually officially discharged on Thanksgiving Day of 1945, after which he was sent back to Iowa city. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Brownwood, Texas;Edgewood Arsenal;Victory in Europe (VE) Day</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>966</time><title>Attending University </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Were there any parades when you...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock shares the details of his return home. Pollock explains that he went back to school with the assistance of the G.I Bill and he describes his education experience following WWII. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>G.I Bill;University of Idaho;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1273</time><title>Basic training</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Have you celebrated or honored V-E Day...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock talks about his respect for V-E Day and shares his relief in having not to fight in Japan. He then talks about the "traumatic" experience of leaving home for basic training in 1943. Pollock describes the basic training camp of New Orleans.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>infantry;Japan;M1-Rifle;V-E Day;Victory in Europe Day</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1608</time><title>Combat experience </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>My combat experience in Europe was... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock describes the horrific nature of WWII and summarizes the stalemate at the Rhine River between US and German troops. He talks about his and other soldiers' ignorance of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>atomic warfare;Limburg, Germany;war;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>1851</time><title>Reflections on US safety following WWII </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>How did you feel after you found... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock explains his position regarding the atomic bombs dropped on Japan by the US. He then talks about the end of WWII, and the occupation of Germany and Japan. Pollock describes his feelings of security regarding the safety of the United States after the allies won WWII. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Cold War;safety;Soviet Union;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2126</time><title>International security and the Cold War </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>We seem to be pretty friendly with Putin...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock shares his outlook on the relationship between Russia and the United States. He then discusses the need for leadership in the United States and reflects on the benefit of America's international actions for American citizens. Pollock talks about his son's accomplishments and how he believes the Cold War has changed America. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Cold War;education;Korean War;Vietnam War</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2413</time><title>US's national defense / Opinions on nuclear warfare</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>It was necessary for us to continue... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock talks about the need for a strong national defense system following the end of WWII. Pollock explains his opinion on the Cold War and the potential for nuclear warfare following WWII.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Cold War;defense;security;WWI;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2749</time><title>Discrimination in WWII / Ballistic missile safety </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Our essential government seems to be... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock talks about his work in the Air Force and his opinion on the aerial defenses of the United States. He then describes racism in the military during WWII. Pollock shares his opinion of German soldiers and the history of the United State's ballistic missile program following WWII. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Air Force;ballistic missles;discrimination;Germany;national security;race;V-1 Rocket;V-2 Rocket;Wernher von Braun;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>2995</time><title>US ballistic missile program / Race relations in the military </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Von Braun, who was the leading rocketeer...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock talks about the development of the US's ballistic missile program and the extreme dedication of the Japanese soldiers to the war effort. Pollock talks about his lack of interaction with minority soldiers due to the segregation of the military. Pollock reflects on his naivety concerning race relations in the south. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>ballistic missiles;honor;race;Wernher von Braun</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>3311</time><title>Reflections on war </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>Did you notice any of the other positions...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Pollock reflects on the lack of quality duties given to Black soldiers during WWII and instances of segregation during the war effort. Pollock describes the unpredictability of war and talks about the importance of international organizations for preventing future wars. He ends the interview with a reflection on his luck in surviving WWII. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>discrimination;duties;segregation;United Nations;WWII</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point></index><type>oral history</type><description></description><rel /><transcript>No transcript.</transcript><transcript_alt></transcript_alt><rights>Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.</rights><fmt>audio</fmt><usage></usage><userestrict>0</userestrict><xmllocation></xmllocation><xmlfilename></xmlfilename><collection_link>http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP/findingaid</collection_link><series_link></series_link></record></ROOT>
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
I. Georgia Narratives
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0063
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Philip Pollock Jr., March 5, 2015
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
United States--Veterans
United States. Army--Soldiers
Foreign relations
Cold War
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-03-05
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Philip Pollock, Jr.
Shannon Roy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Description
An account of the resource
Phillip Pollock was born in Joliet, Illinois in 1923. Pollock was drafted into the Army in 1943, where he began his infantry combat career in the European Theater of World War II. Upon his return home, Pollock earned both an undergraduate and master's degree in political science and history from the University of Iowa. In this interview, Pollock talks about his basic training and wartime experience, homecoming, his opinion on US national security and international relations, and the development of the United States ballistic missile program. <br /><br/><br/>This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">Georgia Narratives</a> series.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Hyperlink
A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
37 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0013/audio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
I. Georgia Narratives
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0013
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Robert Henry Bohler, April 19, 2013
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
United States--Veterans
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-04-19
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Robert Henry Bohler
Louis Boyd
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Description
An account of the resource
Louis Boyd interviews his friend and neighbor Robert Henry Bohler about his transient childhood growing up in the Great Depression and his experiences at Berry College and at Fort Sill in Oklahoma during World War II. Bohler also talks about meeting his wife, attending Georgia Tech on the G.I. Bill, and his career at Georgia Power. <br /><br /><br />This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">Georgia Narratives</a> series.
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-005/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
Interview with Tommy Lee Harps, December 21, 2015
RBRL418GAA-005
RBRL418GAA
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Tommy Lee Harps
John Cruickshank
oral history
1:|19(4)|29(44)|29(189)|29(363)|29(499)|29(596)|30(91)|30(269)|34(2)|46(53)|46(204)|46(331)|52(15)|54(105)|56(15)|58(139)|62(15)|62(126)|62(247)|62(408)|62(563)|66(78)|72(5)|80(65)|80(220)|80(368)|82(16)|100(24)|104(128)|104(281)|112(155)|113(52)|117(19)|117(215)|117(386)|121(92)|133(104)|134(38)|134(230)|134(369)|134(542)|134(687)|146(103)|146(249)|150(3)|158(121)|166(59)|174(58)|188(39)|210(19)|212(121)|212(339)|212(493)|212(628)|212(844)|212(991)|212(1165)|212(1314)|212(1464)|212(1636)|212(1780)|212(1940)|216(16)|224(57)|224(222)|232(14)|232(166)|232(325)|240(9)|240(142)|240(258)|240(415)|240(544)|240(658)|240(812)|251(18)|257(147)|257(297)
1:|5(3)
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_5f14wb8i&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&&wid=1_35iho7lz" width="400" height="285" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe>
English
0
Introduction / Family, childhood, work at the Georgia Experiment Station (now UGA Griffin Campus)
I’m John Cruickshank, Librarian at UGA Griffin. I have with me today several other interviewers.
Harps discusses his childhood growing up on a farm in Griffin, Georgia. His father was later hired by Dr. Stuckey at the Georgia Experiment Station, under the condition that he would send his children to school. Harps talks about how Dr. Stuckey treated all of his employees with respect regardless of their race. Harps also worked on the Station washing beakers for the chemical lab.
Bill Baker;Great Depression;H.P. StuckeylGeorgia Experiment Station;Jack Williams;Meriwether County;Spalding County;UGA Griffin Campusl;William Baker
1340
Millitary Service / Mother's work for the Baker family
See I left here and went in the Army...
In this section, Harps talks about his millitary service in the United States Army in the European Theatre during World War II. He discusses his experience of segregation in the Army and the hypocrisy of fighting a war for a country in which he was treated as a second class citizen. He discusses his mother and her relationship with the Baker family in Griffin.
Executive Order 9981;Harry S. Truman;Jim Crow Laws;Plessy v. Ferguson;Separate But Equal;United States Army;World War II;WWII
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9981
The United States Armed Forces remained racially segregated until after the end of World War II. President Truman Signed E.O. 9981 on July 26, 1948 abolishing Jim Crow segregation in the United States Armed Forces.
1802
School years
What was school like for you? Elementary and … ?
In this section, Mr. Harps discusses his school years at Mt. Pleasant Church School and Vocational High School. He discusses the conditions in the schools and relates his experience of the instructors who taught in them. He talks about the changes in discipline that occurred after schools were integrated, saying that black teacher were not supposed to beat the white children and vice versa.
Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church;Mt. Pleasant School;Q.D. Flemming;Segregated School;Segregation;Spalding County School System;Vocational High School
2381
Discussion of the Ku Klux Klan / Description of School at Mt. Pleasant
It was terrible back in those days. The Ku Klux Klan used to come and ride by Ellis Road.
In this segment, Mr. Harps discusses the problem of the Ku Klux Klan and how it affected the African-American community in Griffin. He also comes back to the discussion of the Mt. Pleasant Church School.
Domsetic Terrorism;KKK;Ku Klux Klan;Lynching;Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church;Mt. Pleasant School
2994
Thoughts on integration and its effects on education and the African-American community generally
I only have one pressing question. You mentioned earlier that the consolidation of schools was a bad thing ...
Mr. Harps shares his thoughts on the integration of schools and the differences he sees between segregated and integrated schools. He says that integration was a "bad thing" because the teachers couldn't discipline the students as much, but he agrees that the black schools needed better books, teachers, and facilities.
13th Amendment;American Legion;Black Codes;Civil Rights Act;Civil Rights Act of 1964;Desegregation;Fairmont High School;Griffin High School;Integrated School;Integration;Plessy v. Ferguson;Segregated School;Segregation;Separate But Equal;Vagrancy Laws
3745
Economy of Griffin during segregation / Working conditions for African-Americans
When you talk about the Experiment station and working at the Experiment Station and working with Director Stuckey and working in the chemical laboratories, it sounds like your experience at the Experiment Station was a good experience.
In this section, Mr. Harps discusses the working climate for African-Americans in Griffin under Jim Crow. He talks a little bit about his job as a truck driver which took him all over the state of Georgia and also discusses African-American businesses in Griffin. Mr. Harps further discusses the extremely broad vagrancy laws which were in effect under Jim Crow.
Black Codes;Buford;Georgia Experiment Station;Herman Talmadge;Jim Crow Laws;UGA Griffin Campus;Vagrancy Laws
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)
In the aftermath of the Civil War, former confederate states legislatures passed Black Codes designed to restrict the freedom of African-Americans living in the South. The key features of this legislation were broad vagrancy laws which allowed local law enforcement to legally arrest African-Americans and commit them to involuntary labor in the prison system. These laws exploited an exception in the 13th Amendment which allows for "involuntary servitude" if someone is convicted of a crime.
RBRL418GAA-005_Harps __: (inaudible) You guys go right ahead. JOHN CRUICKSHANK: Okay, do I have to speak to test the levels, or anything? __: No, I’ll just right them as we’re going. CRUICKSHANK: Oh, okay. So, I guess I’ll start. Okay. How do I start this... I’m John Cruickshank, Librarian at University of Georgia Griffin. And I have with me today several other interviewers. We have here -- and I’m just going to go around and get you to say your names. JEWEL WALKER-HARPS: I’m Jewel Walker-Harps, Griffin Branch NAACP, and Educational Prosperity Initiative. BE-ATRICE CUNNINGHAM: Be-Atrice Cunningham, University of Georgia Griffin Campus. ART CAIN: Art Cain, University of Georgia Griffin Campus Office of Continuing Education. CRUICKSHANK: And I guess I should mention the date. It’s December the 21st, 2015, on a Monday. And our guest today is -- TOMMY HARPS: Tommy Harps. CRUICKSHANK: Mm-hmm. Tommy -- HARPS: Tommy L. Harps. CRUICKSHANK: Tommy L. Harps, Tommy Lee Harps. Okay. So, just to start off then, Mr. Harps, would you please tell us when and where you were born and where you grew up? HARPS: Well, I was born in Mayweather County. I left Mayweather County when I was six years old. I moved to Spalding County. So, my daddy was working for a farm (inaudible) we were little bitty boys. And we (inaudible) we can remember, but that Rodney Muse was out there. And he had a farm. And Rodney want him to take us and make us work on that farm. He wouldn’t do it. He come to Georgia Experiment Station. And Dr. Stuckey hired him. And there used to be two little houses that sat right up there. We moved to one of them until they could get a house for us. And then, we started -- he started working there. And Dr. Stuckey told us that we had to go to school. If we stay here, we had to go to school. And we moved on to (inaudible) right down there on Ellis Road. There was seven houses down there. And we stayed just about the middle of it. And I just -- we just grew up here on Georgia Experiment Station. Little boys (inaudible) right there at our backyard. And we had to -- he wanted to see what -- Georgia Experiment Station, they wouldn’t let me and Glen and them pick the cotton. They made us go to school. But we used to walk from Ellis Road to Mount Pleasant every morning. I’m talking about every day, rain, snow, or sleet. We had to go because Dr. Stuckey -- they had a truant officer to make sure we went. And Dr. Stuckey made sure that all of us went to school because he wanted us to get an education. But the people in the rural section, they had to quit school and go and pick the cotton. And we wanted to pick cotton. And Dr. Stuckey told them, “No. You all don’t pick cotton. You’re going to school.” That’s what he told our parents. So, my daddy worked for Georgia Experiment Station, started working for them in 1931, he said. And my mama worked for bakers, that cook -- work over there. She raised all them children and fed us. We had to work every day when we were little seven, eight (inaudible) little boys. I had to feed the hog. We (inaudible) we used to order chicken from there, (inaudible). We were raised them to be grown chickens, didn’t have no light. Nothing but a lantern. We had a lantern we put in a great big old box and raised them chickens and fed them till they got large enough until they got (inaudible), then we put them (inaudible). So, when -- like the (inaudible) now, they want a big old hen, we just go out there and killed them, had eggs, chicken, hog, and Georgia Experiment Station had cows. They had a dairy sitting back in there and had a freezer in that building across the street (inaudible) that’s where they would do something to the milk (inaudible) because, see, all of this then, black people working in here. We had Dr. Stuckey, Dr. Harlan, you know, (inaudible) office they were white, but all -- but (inaudible) they raised everything (inaudible) grape, watermelon, cantaloupe, peas, butterbeans. And they were taking (inaudible) and Dr. -- what’s his name? Not Harley (inaudible) -- well, anyway, they worked at the chemical laboratory. They would take that stuff, send it up there to run a test on it. When they run a test on it, they would let us -- they would call or (inaudible) we had wagon they would tell us to go to right there and pick up the potatoes, pick the peas, pick the butterbeans. And, see, they’d give you that (inaudible) because (inaudible) we had to buy the meat. We didn’t have to buy butter. And, see, back in those times, when times was hard, we used to take eggs and swap for sugar, take it to the grocery store and swap it for sugar. And when we’d leave Experiment line going to work, the children would go to school. Now, we were going to school (inaudible). We go to school. We had to fight every day (inaudible) them white boys. We had to walk. They rode in busses. And I always thought it was wrong for them to treat us like that, but that’s the way we was treated. But we -- now, you couldn’t come on Georgia Experiment Station to arrest nobody. Police, state patrol, federal (inaudible), they couldn’t come on here. And then, they’d go out there to Dr. Stuckey’s house. And Dr. Stuckey would give them permission to come -- if he said no, that was it. That was it because didn’t want nobody to come down -- I’m going to tell you the truth, he was a man that everybody know over the State of Georgia. And if he said no, that was just no. That was all. But he would treat all his employees the same way. He was -- now, a lot of folks don’t like him, but I’ll say this about Dr. Stuckey, Dr. Stuckey was a man to stand up for what was right for black people (inaudible) because the sheriff (inaudible) they want to come, but he said, no, you ain’t going to do it. If we did something, we didn’t have -- if the (inaudible) employee did something (inaudible) Dr. Stuckey, he comes over there and gets them. (inaudible) to him. See, his cook lived right over there. Yeah, the lady that cooked for him (inaudible). Dr. Stuckey lived there. And when we got -- when me and Glen and them got big enough to do some work, we used to water -- Regan had a fall place up there. We used to water his flowers for 50 cents a night. That’s all we got, but that was a lot of money for us because we just poor people. CRUICKSHANK: Got a couple questions. HARPS: [00:09:00] What? CRUICKSHANK: Your father was hired in 1931. Did he tell you anything about the hiring process? How they made a decision to hire him and also about how much he was making during that time because that was going into the Depression and so on? HARPS: Well, what I know of what my daddy was making for a week from 8:00 in the morning till 5:00 in the evening, he would get $15.88 a week. That’s what they were paying him, $15.88 a week. CRUICKSHANK: Fifty or fifteen? HARPS: Fifteen. CRUICKSHANK: Fifteen. Okay. HARPS: Fifteen-eighty-eight a week, but we had (inaudible) pay the rent. See, we stayed on that line down there. And when the people stayed in that house, they didn’t have to pay rent. Of course, they had to build the big old houses over down on that line. And so, but how he hired dad, I don’t know. I don’t know how they hired him because now he (inaudible), but he had a -- we was staying out there on (inaudible). And so, he was fixing to leave, so somebody heard about it. He said -- now, I don’t know what he said. And Dr. Stuckey -- see, we had the first (inaudible) up there. Now, that may have been how he got connected with Georgia Experiment Station. And his sister stayed below (inaudible), his sister did, (inaudible). We were little bitty boys and we did (inaudible) had to go because we had -- see, back in them days, children had to be children. They couldn’t sit down and (inaudible) the hell coming. And we sat in the room. Well, we had to go in our room. See, we had a room we stay in, bedroom, (inaudible) eat till everybody sat down at the table and somebody would say grace. See, I look at today and I say these children are blessed these days. Have to try -- see, we went to school because we loved to go to school (inaudible) walking, cold -- used to get to school hands got so cold. And there wasn’t no fire in there in the church we was in. We had (inaudible) had to go in there and cut wood and come and make a fire. My sister used to -- her hands would be so cold, they put her hand in water before they let her put it in the fire fire. We walked, Georgia Experiment (inaudible). And you couldn’t be absent because mama would make us go to school. She didn’t get it, but she’s going to make sure the children got some. So, after we went to school, now, if we hadn’t been on a farm, we couldn’t have went because back in that day, they pull people out of school -- the black children out of school, but they didn’t pull their children out. And I had always asked them why they didn’t because they farm and I wanted to know why they didn’t, but they never -- nobody never did tell me. CRUICKSHANK: Well, let me ask you this, you also said that over here on the Experiment Station that I’m going to interpret this as laborers, many of the laborers were black? HARPS: Yeah. CRUICKSHANK: Okay. And that many of them, I guess, the researchers were white. So, if you could just guess at the percentage of folks who were laborers and were black at the Experiment Station at the time? HARPS: Well, it had a -- they had a few white supervisors, but (inaudible) plant and everything, my daddy and Jack Wheaton and them, they planted everything. My daddy used to -- see, they had peach trees. He planted them. Of course, nobody plume them like he could. Didn’t have no education. He didn’t have no education. My daddy just didn’t -- I had to learn had to write his name, but he could run this station good as anybody else good. Mr. Jack Wheaton could run it. Them black (inaudible) coal and plow them (inaudible). I’m talking about heavy -- people that don’t know (inaudible) was amazed to see what those people did, couldn’t read and write. And I read the Bible (inaudible). I seen in the Bible where Peter had never been trained, had never been to school, but they were blessed to look at the bible (inaudible). See, God gifted them to do this stuff. That’s the only thing I always told (inaudible), I had an uncle didn’t know his name and (inaudible), didn’t know his name (inaudible), but he know how to translate business. He bought a cab company and he made the money. And (inaudible). WALKER-HARPS: What did you do -- those of you who were laborers do? Other than planting the crops, what other jobs did you have? HARPS: Well, see, dad and them planted the crops and grow it up. They would go downtown and get people to pick the cotton (inaudible). And they had watermelon when they’d go out there and get one or two of them (inaudible). They let us go down there and get the wagon and haul (inaudible) we didn’t want to eat. We would eat some, but we would give to -- see, dad and them did the planting. Dad and them did everything, but the (inaudible), he was there, but Dr. Stuckey (inaudible) the man hadn’t had black men working with knowledge to know how to do this stuff. I don’t know how he got them, but he had them. They would get up in the morning and go to work. Everybody worked. You didn’t (inaudible). They used to have a (inaudible). If you didn’t work, you better not walk the streets the next day -- that day. And people that were lazy and didn’t work, they had to stay in the house all day because if they came in the street, they would (inaudible) because everybody is (inaudible) and you had to work. You had to work. Didn’t have no stealing (inaudible) leave our house wide open, go to Atlanta, and come back. I’m talking about (inaudible). Nobody never go in there. WALKER-HARPS: Were you all ever in the labs or what were the labs like? How would you describe your presence or your work if there was any in the labs? HARPS: Well, see, when I was a little boy, I was about 12 years old, they hired me for the chemical -- to come to the chemical (inaudible) to watch the beakers and the glasses and the tubes and things. So, Mr. Prekas, he -- Dr. Prekas, he seen that I was catching on. And he used to setup the chemistry and tell me how to run it. And I used to be at the chemical laboratory and run that for them. William Park, he did it for (inaudible). We had (inaudible) and small and (inaudible). We used to run the chemical laboratory. We used to run the chemical laboratory with Dr. Prekas. He was (inaudible). And Dr. Holly was in charge of the whole building, but Dr. Stuckey was over the whole business from (inaudible). Dr. Stuckey was the man that speak and never (inaudible). And then, I used to work in the chemical laboratory. James Miller used to work down there where they would can stuff at. And they had another room in there where they made wine at. See, they had a big grape vineyard up there. And they’d take their wine and take their grapes and make wine. And they would keep it 10 years before they would open it. Like this year’s 10 years, they would take the wine 10 years old and they would open it. And by me working in the chemical laboratory (inaudible), I was bored. And I drunk (inaudible) good. (laughter) I drunk that wine and I just started going round and round. Now, you see when I got sober, I ain’t put nothing -- I don’t drink wine no -- ain’t never drank wine no more. And there used to be a syrup mill out there. They had a syrup mill with mules going round and round. I used to sit there and feed that syrup mill, get that juice out, bring it to the chemical laboratory, and I would cook that syrup, cook that juice, and make syrup right here. I’m the one that used to -- I used to make the syrup. James did all the canning, but the syrup, I would make that. And, see, that’s why everything was (inaudible) the black people. And I didn’t see a drunk -- we didn’t see no drunk women. And a woman -- I know they did it, but they didn’t cuss around us. They didn’t say nothing around us. And then, they try to teach us how to read the Bible (inaudible). When I first seen a drunk woman, I had been to Germany and come back. And I moved out (inaudible) and I seen a drunk woman. I was about 20 years old then because I -- they just didn’t do it in front of us. People respected their children then. We did not see no drunk -- we didn’t have nobody curse. And I used to say, mama, now, I know you all did. She said, that ain’t none of your business. And that was it. When she said -- when they said that -- see, mama was a lady. She said what she meant and she meant what she said. If she tell us go to the store, we had to walk from up there where we stayed at all the way to Experiment Street where the store was. WALKER-HARPS: Did your daddy have a good relationship working with Dr. Stuckey? HARPS: Oh, my daddy don’t say nothing about that because he was the number one man with Dr. Stuckey. Dr. Stuckey believed everything my daddy said. I know sometimes it’ll be wrong, but he believed it. He used to (inaudible) he had mule and a lawnmower that the mule pull. He cut all that grass (inaudible) with a mule and that lawnmower, that lawnmower (inaudible). See, everything then was mule, wasn’t no vehicles. If you (inaudible), you had to go in a wagon. If you hauled stuff away across the hill over there, you had to do -t in a wagon until they got -- the later time -- I can remember when they -- now, I can remember when they got the tractor. They started getting rid of mules. They got a tractor and started following with a tractor. I can remember that because we were staying down there. See, I left here and went in the Army (inaudible). They pulled me out of (inaudible) high school and sent me to the Army. CAIN: Was that in World War II? HARPS: World War II. Yeah, I’m a World War II veteran. And I didn’t like the Army because they were Jim Crow, just like they were (inaudible). They had to separate. White one place. Black in another. We was in Germany. They had a sign that said white honor. I’m talking about in Germany. CAIN: Was that -- were those signs created by U.S. military or were -- HARPS: Yeah, I was in the U.S. military. See, U.S. military was Jim Crow back in World War II and World War I till we got on the front line. Everybody (snaps) like that on the front line. CAIN: Did you go to the front lines? CRUICKSHANK: You did, mm-hmm. HARPS: (inaudible) come up the front line, black go here, white go there and that’s how the Jim Crow was. And then (inaudible) 20 years. I (inaudible), but I didn’t like it. And I come home. And (inaudible), yeah, I know it was wrong. And they said -- I said, well, why did I got to go to (inaudible)? This is your country. You have to fight for your freedom. Go over there and do all that stuff, lay in the snow and ice and stuff, and then truck getting stuff, and come back here and you’re treated like you’re a fourth-class citizen. And, see, I had an attitude. My uncle had a worse attitude than me. We would let people know what they do to us. (inaudible) if I die. I said, I’d rather be dead then if I can’t talk. Well, you go to respect. I said, they don’t respect me. And people respect you when you stand up to be a man because they respected us. They would always say welcome home (inaudible). They stopped talking and they treated us like we were men, but we had to (inaudible) in the children. We didn’t have no -- we had a connection with the police downtown. These police today (inaudible). They didn’t lock us up. They would catch us doing something wrong, bring you home to your mama. And I told them (inaudible) lock me up (inaudible) because I know what mama was going to do to me. I know she was going to get that (inaudible) whipped on your back, whipped on your foot, whipped on your butt, whipped on your legs. I’m talking about, she would whoop us all over. And she just whoop us. It looked like she’d gone crazy. And then, she’d sit down and say I love you. I’d say, mama, how you love me and beat me like that? She said, if you love somebody -- she told us this, if you love somebody, you’re going to chastise them. You’re going to make them live right. You’re going to make them respect people. I respect people today because that’s what -- I don’t care. If I talk in the store, I don’t care if the lady black or white, if she’s about (inaudible) I respect her at the cash register. I don’t -- and then, I stole a marble one time me and my brother. I said, don’t you all tell mama. They said, no, we ain’t going to tell her. When I walked in the house, I heard my brother Ben. He said, mama, I know what was next. She got me and she whooped me from Experiment Line back to down there at Experiment Street, made me take it back, and go in there and tell that man I’m sorry. The man laughed and said, well, he can have it. And she said, no, he ain’t going to have it. And I ain’t stole nothing since. She made a believer of me. CAIN: Let me ask you about you mother because you’ve talked a lot about your father and you mentioned your mother worked somewhere not too far from -- HARPS: Right across the street. CAIN: Tell us a little bit about your mother and her working. HARPS: My mama she worked hard. She fed us. She worked for Bill Baker. She caught all his children, raise them. Billy Baker could tell you that. Pat Baker down there in that flat down there, she raised -- she caught that baby and bring them in the -- brung all them children in the (war?). And she worked for them. She cooked for them. She cooked for us. She had washing and ironing. And she used to do that. We had to draw water to do that. CAIN: Tell us about who she worked for. HARPS: Huh? CAIN: Tell us a little bit more about who she worked for. HARPS: Bill Baker. CAIN: Bill Baker. HARPS: Bill Baker. Uh-huh. He had a little store there. And he would give us stuff out of there to eat, like sandwich and stuff like that. And if we didn’t have -- if she didn’t have enough money to get our clothes with, he would do that. Bill Baker would. She would -- them people were crazy about her. (inaudible) I took you up -- didn’t I take you up there one time? WALKER-HARPS: Yes. HARPS: They loved her so. Oh, they were so crazy about mama because she worked for them all their lives (inaudible). And when she -- when we moved (inaudible) used to come around there to try to get her (inaudible), she wouldn’t come back. Because when I -- see, I left and went in the Army to help my mama with (inaudible) to help my sisters and brother because it was hard trying to live. So, I went home -- when I went in the Army made (inaudible) to her to help with them. And she was saving some money. I said, no, you don’t save it. You feed them and clothe them because I’m all right because the Army was clothing and feeding us (inaudible) stayed, so I want my brother and sisters to have as good a place as I did. Well, we’ve got some lovely family. We looked out for one another. Like I said, we had to work for what we got. We couldn’t -- didn’t nobody give us nothing because we had to work. And mama and them made us work. In the summertime, they would make us -- now, they used to have (inaudible). We used to go as little bitty boys go and pick (inaudible) out of that carton and bring (inaudible) and Dr. Stuckey and them, I don’t know what they did (inaudible). They give us a (inaudible) made 50 cents (inaudible) because money was money back in them days. See, people now beg too much. I don’t (inaudible) people beg because if they would work, they can get what they want. WALKER-HARPS: What was school like for you, elementary and -- HARPS: School? WALKER-HARPS: School. What was it like going to school or being in school? You said you went to Mount Pleasant. HARPS: Mount Pleasant, I can tell you what Mount Pleasant was like. It was a church, Mount Pleasant Church. You know where Mount Pleasant Church at? We went there. When we got there, there was no fire(inaudible), we had to go (inaudible). We were to come back and make a fire. And we would be so cold, we done walk through Experiment Station (inaudible) and we done walk to Pomona and went to Pomona up there. (inaudible) walk there every day. To get there, you’re so cold, but you got to go up there and try to get something to get warm, had a big old heater that we went up there and cut that wood. The bigger boys would do it. They’d cut that wood. They’d come back and make a fire and got the church warm. So, one day, me and (inaudible) -- this was in (inaudible) because we had (inaudible). We got some -- we go out there and got the wood. We had some pine -- the little pine needle thing. We put it in the church in the thing. I reckon the sparks come out and set the church on fire. (laughter) But we couldn’t get (inaudible). We just throw it in there and the lady come. See, we had to tote our water from Mount Pleasant Church to way over there on Hill Street now. There was an old lady that lived (inaudible) spring. We had to tote our water from there for the school, didn’t have no lunch, didn’t have nothing but -- mama never make us lunch because we had plenty to eat. Go in there and cut a ham (inaudible) and they make us -- we had good lunches, we did, because she was prepared for that. But when I went to high school, vocational -- vocational didn’t have no hot lunch, didn’t have no gym. We had (Mollet?) Gym is what we had to use to play basketball in, had to use (inaudible) Field to play football in. And we had to know what day they was going to play because we was going to play, but it was exciting. We enjoyed it. WALKER-HARPS: What do you remember most about high school at the vocational school? HARPS: Vocational? Well, (inaudible) vocational Ms. Williams, Ms. Bennett. She was the English teacher and she was harder than (inaudible). You had to get your lesson when you go in her room. You couldn’t go in there and talk. She was a little bitty short lady, but you couldn’t talk. When you go in there, you go in there working. You worked that whole hour. When they changed class -- I’d be so glad when time would change classes. I’d get out of her room. (laughter) We’d be running getting out of there. Now, if she gave you an assignment, you better have it the next morning. If you didn’t, she’d send you down to (inaudible) Fleming. Mr. Fleming would take you down there in the shop and he would wear your out down there with that strap. I don’t care how big you were or nothing, but you just couldn’t (inaudible). The football players, he’d walk around at night and see if they were out. They couldn’t play football. If he catch them out in the street, they couldn’t play football. I’m talking about (inaudible), he was the star on the -- the quarterback and they caught him out, he didn’t go to (inaudible) with us. He said if I lose the game, I’m happy because you ain’t going. We said, Mr. Fleming, ain’t you going to let him go? Coach, ain’t you going to let him go? No. He thinks he’s -- because he (inaudible). I bet you from then on, he didn’t catch him out. And they -- and if they be -- if we were -- when I was playing football for the high school, if I know Fleming was somewhere around, I’m going to start running home. Everybody had to have a project in high school. And I had a hog and had a bunch of chickens. And he’s going to walk and see that you got them. He’s going to check us all out to see what we said we had, that we had them. And you better have them because I reckon everybody know what’s next because we did. He went -- and when you walk into school, he said, you ain’t going to class, you go out there in the shop. When you went out there to the shop, we know what that meant. He going to whoop us, discipline us. When they took discipline out of school, they did the wrong thing. Because if they would’ve had discipline in school, you all wouldn’t have no problems now. WALKER-HARPS: How well did your hogs and your chickens do? HARPS: Chickens? Oh, they’d grow. It was like I told you we had a -- we didn’t have no electric. We had lamps. We had to get -- if we didn’t get our lesson in there, we had to get it by lamps with oil in there. No electric. And the chicken, we had a big old box, a (inaudible) (Mr. Harold?) (inaudible). And we put them in there. And dad had a lantern. We’d hang that lantern over there to keep them warm. And they’d grow, grow, grow. We took care of them. CAIN: Was there electricity in the high school? HARPS: Huh? CAIN: Was there electricity in the high school? HARPS: Yeah, there was electricity in the high school and vocational (inaudible). CAIN: And vocational (inaudible). HARPS: Uh-huh. They had electric in there. They had everything there, but didn’t have no lunchroom, didn’t have no gym. And the uniform we wore for playing football, we get the one that Griffin High (inaudible) wore three or four years. They sent them over there and we had them. We didn’t get no new uniforms. They get the new ones. We get the old ones. Books, they get the new ones. We get the old ones. But we took what we got and we put it to good use. See, the teachers made us do it then. It ain’t whether you want it or not. When the teacher said you had to do it, you had to do it. You couldn’t -- of course, if you talked back to the teacher, she -- I don’t know how mama got it because no telephone. But when I’d get home that evening, she knew it. (laughter) And when she know it, everybody know what was next. The next day, we’d go there and we had to go there and beg the teachers, apologize to the teacher and tell her we won’t do it no more. And (inaudible) tell you the same thing. He was principal. But when they consolidated the school -- now, people may not -- don’t agree with me, but that was a bad thing because them teachers would tear your up back then. And I asked a question, why did you all stop disciplining the children? But they didn’t have to tell, I know. They didn’t want them black teachers whooping the white children. That’s what it was. It was just that simple. See, I’m a man that tell you just like it was, and I would tell them that. I didn’t bite my tongue for nobody, and I didn’t scratch my head for nobody. And I never like for nobody to hit me on the back because it’s something they want. People don’t hit me on the back now because I know it’s something they want. Don’t touch me. Don’t do that. You can shake my hand. You can hug me or anything, but don’t hit me on the back because my granddaddy told me don’t let nobody touch you on the back because it’s something they want. See, they trained us for these things when we was children. They trained us. They trained -- my uncle always trained me to speak up regardless of if it’d kill you. Speak up. Don’t be scared. He said, what you going to be scared of? People going to do what they want to do. And (inaudible) Jim Crow (inaudible) until -- if you’re going down Ellis and a white boy come up and slap you and you knock him down, they’re going to accuse you (inaudible) knock you down first. They’re going to let him go. And they’re going to take you home and you had to get a whooping. It was just that’s the lives that -- we went through it. You all don’t know nothing about it. It was terrible back in those days. The Ku Klux Klan used to come back, ride Ellis Road, (inaudible) home. Me and my brother would (inaudible). We’d sit behind the fence there. We would sit behind there and throw rocks over there and hit them. When they stopped the car, we’d jump out and (inaudible) the watermelon (inaudible) and lay down in the watermelon. I’m talking about (inaudible) -- and so, they stopped riding through there because they didn’t -- couldn’t never find out where we hid (inaudible). But we were doing it because didn’t have no business up there. They couldn’t come on the line. Now, on Ellis Road, it was all right, but they better not come to none of them houses up there because Dr. Stuckey was in charge. And he knows that the (inaudible) what they’re going to tell him the next morning. My daddy would anyway because he made (inaudible) and he took care of Dr. Stuckey. Every morning, he’d go there and make fire for him. When he’d get up, his house warm, but he would (inaudible) because they would get up at 5:00 in the morning, 5:30 mama done fix breakfast, and she’s ready to go to work. And she’d fix our breakfast. Whatever she bought, that’s what we had to eat. Then she’d go over there and said, now, when you all leave here, I want you all to be (inaudible) her house at 5:00 in the morning (inaudible). She’d say when you all leave here going to school just like (inaudible) at night, better be here when I come home tonight (inaudible). We did -- I left a plate one time and I got a whooping about it. And at night, nothing in the dishpan, no fork, no spoon. Everything go to be washed before we can go to bed. Clothes, everything had to be washed before we go -- and we used to water our (inaudible) in the summertime and heat the water. We heated our water because we had a stove with a reservoir on it. But by us being five children, each one of us had to draw some water and put five tubs and that’s what we bathed in at night. WALKER-HARPS: What heated water? HARPS: Huh? WALKER-HARPS: What heated -- HARPS: Sun heated. WALKER-HARPS: Okay. HARPS: (inaudible) heated, the sun. You sat it out there in the yard, it’ll heat that water. It’s warm. You can do that now. He was very excited for us to live and we was happy to be here on Georgia Experiment Station. Now, that’s one thing (inaudible) Georgia Experiment Station, we worked for -- my daddy worked for the government. And Dr. Stuckey didn’t allow nobody coming onto Georgia Experiment Station bother nobody, don’t care who you -- white or black. If you come on here, you’re going to respect everybody. Now, he -- that’s the kind of man that he was. He was a white man too. (inaudible) always tell her, I said, all white people wasn’t mean (inaudible), but they had some good white people. When I got old enough to start driving trucks, I used to drive trucks all over Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama. Never did have no trouble with nobody because everybody I drove -- everybody know where I went in. I had a sack of feed on my shoulder saying -- this white man came out there and slapped me. And (inaudible) because I knocked him down. And then going down to (inaudible) right there at the old railroad crossing, the children were going to school. Then, they went to running. Ahh, that nigger done hit that white man. I said, if I catch you, I’m going to hit you. And I don’t know how it got to the man I worked for in Griffin, P.C. Williams. When I (inaudible) around, he (inaudible) that railroad. He (inaudible) building. And he come out. I said, who’d I hit, Peewee? They called him Peewee. Who’d I hit, Peewee? And so, the sheriff came out there. I said, Mr. Williams, Mr. Williams, (inaudible). And so, I told them. I said that man hit me. And he got at him with his pistol. They had to stop the man (inaudible). And the sheriff told him said, no, no, no, look, we ain’t going to have that. He (inaudible). And he said you’re (inaudible) tell me what you’re going to do because I got some -- see, (inaudible) Griffin was small. They were mean men. There was a bunch of them, but they would take care of us. They really would. CAIN: I’ve got a few more questions. HARPS: All right. CAIN: How big a problem was the Ku Klux Klan -- HARPS: It was a problem. They were a big problem. I’m telling you the poor white man could be in his house, they’re going to drag him out and whoop him. CAIN: So, it wasn’t just black folks -- HARPS: Black -- no. If you were poor, and all black folks is, but if you (inaudible) go in there and whoop them white folks like they wasn’t nothing. And (Captain Draward?), I used to (inaudible) the police. I just (inaudible). I used to go over there and he used to get me in the car to ride along. And he used to take me down to East Griffin, he whooped them white folks to death?. And I said, Captain, why do you do that? I said, they’re white like you. They are. And that’s the reason I do it because they had a chance to have something. They didn’t. They poor. I said, everybody can’t be rich. They were poor when they was born. They going to be poor. So, I always tell them (inaudible) for -- I’m talking about the Ku Klux Klan would whoop the white. They (inaudible) treated (inaudible). And if you’re going down the street and see a white woman and she said you raped her and you ain’t said nothing to her, they’ll hang you (inaudible). CAIN: Did you ever know of any lynches here? HARPS: In here? CAIN: No. HARPS: No. I didn’t know them, but they did tell me it went on. I didn’t know them because stayed here. And I know it didn’t go on here on Georgia Experiment Station. That’s the reason I’m like I am today, just speak out, let people know because Dr. Stuckey told me to always do this. Stand up for yourself. And so, he would tell every man to stand up for his self. And if you can’t handle it, you come to me. And Dr. Stuckey would take care of everybody up here. All them men that worked for him stayed on the station. Here on the station couldn’t nobody come on here and touch you. Don’t care what they did. CAIN: Backing up just a second, about how many people were at Mount Pleasant when you went to school? HARPS: Huh? CAIN: About how many people were at Mount Pleasant when you went to school? HARPS: Well, I’ll tell you the truth, I can’t -- people go -- they have a good group when we first started, but, see, when they start getting a farm they pull all them children out, but they people didn’t -- here (inaudible) we had to go to school, but they pulled them others out to gather the crop. CAIN: Was it -- how many teachers were there? HARPS: One. CAIN: Just one. So one teacher -- HARPS: One teacher. CAIN: Okay. HARPS: One teacher for the whole class. That’s just how it was. And they’d come around and they’d give you -- every now and then, they could bring an apple there and give you. That’s the only thing you had to eat. I would take mine and throw it away because I had my lunch. I just threw it across the field because I didn’t want it. And so, they said I was just mean. No. I wasn’t mean. I just -- they’re the ones that made me like I was the way they try to treat me because you got to treat me as a man. Because you had to treat my uncle as a many because he was human just like anybody else. CAIN: I’m going to have to go. I was supposed to go at 3:00. It’s been a pleasure listening to you. And I wish I could stay a little longer, but I’ve got another commitment. Thank you. It’s been my pleasure. HARPS: Okay. (inaudible). CRUICKSHANK: Yeah, let’s take a break. Yeah, the restroom is just out here. WALKER-HARPS: Use it. M: I’m ready whenever you guys are. WALKER-HARPS: As I said, we’re building a -- the third Sunday in January, we’re building around this project, MLK Program. CRUICKSHANK: Oh, yeah. Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: So, I hope I can tie it together. CRUICKSHANK: Yeah, sure. WALKER-HARPS: But, anyway, I’m ready whenever -- now, whenever you want to stop for the day and you want to call this part one and come back for part two, that’s okay. Just say the word and we’ll do it. CRUICKSHANK: Okay. CUNNINGHAM: I only have one pressing question. You mentioned earlier that the consolidation of schools was a bad thing in your opinion. Can you tell us why you feel that way or can you give us some specific examples of what was bad about the consolidation of the schools? HARPS: The children took control of the school, the children. The teachers cannot touch the children. Some of the teachers -- I talked to teachers. They can’t touch them. They can’t chastise them. But when I was going to school, when my children were going to school (inaudible), the teacher would say jump, they would have to jump. And then, they took prayer out of school. When we had prayer in school, that’s the first thing we did in Mount Pleasant Church in school, Mount Pleasant School when we had the school, first thing we had was prayer. And everybody now had to say a Bible verse. And when we took Lord out of the school, you put the devil -- now, you look at the schools today, little six-year-old children sitting in there scared, don’t know no -- when somebody’s going to come in there and kill them. This is happening. But in my day, you didn’t have to worry about school because the teacher was in charge, but the teachers ain’t in charge now. And the law stopped them from whooping -- stopped the parent from whooping them. But I told the law this as long as mine stay in my house, I’m going to chastise them, (inaudible) feed them, and I’m going to have to clothe -- and they told me, they said, well, I know you were going to do it anyway. That’s right. I don’t think no child can stay in my house -- I’ve got children. They’re grown. They got grandchildren. I go in their house. I respect it. And what they say, I try to do it their way. If they come in my house, they have to do it my way. The grandchildren (inaudible) same thing. I don’t have no trouble with them because I set the tone for them when they were little children. Let them know who was in charge. And I told them do the same thing. Let your children know who is in charge. Don’t let nobody come -- but, see, now, you look at the average child in school today, you cannot -- we could not walk the streets and then school. They used to have truant officers. And you had to go to school. If you didn’t, they’d come talk to your parent. Now, your parents, they’d take them to jail. Now, look, if you’re a schoolteacher and do something -- if you do something to a child now, try to chastise him, tell him what’s right, he goes home and tells his mama and the law on you. She come back raising hell. That’s wrong. That’s wrong. See, you got yours. I’m trying to get mine. That’s what my mama told me. (inaudible), so you better go there and do right. But when they consolidate the school (inaudible) just look how the school fell apart, ain’t no respect in school. You all teachers can’t do nothing. You can’t chastise no child now. I got a grandboy. He had two boys in school in Atlanta, they (inaudible) because they couldn’t do nothing about it. But he went there and he whooped that boy. He said he whooped him all up in the back. They said (Mr. McCray?) (inaudible). And he whooped him, and they called the police. Police sat out on their car he said and they talked to him. So, he told him, he said, now, I’m going to tell you, I know you’re going to take me to jail, but my (inaudible) going to come get me. But when you take me to jail, take them clothes off and lay them on the step, take them shoes off and lay them on the step, and don’t bring them back in my house. Police said we can’t do that. He said if he come in my house, I’m going to whoop his -- they looked at him -- and he said they looked at him and laughed. I wish we had more young men like that. That’s what they said they told him. And they didn’t take him to jail from then on. He didn’t have no trouble anymore. The teacher could tell him something, he would do it because he told me I ain’t got time to come (inaudible) come over here and get you. Boy, I’ll kill you. He was just that -- he said he was (inaudible) because I know what you used to do to us. You’d go over there and you just (inaudible) you would tear us up. And I’m going to do the same thing, so he didn’t -- I think had -- I made him a little too mean (inaudible), but, see, (inaudible) and I said -- when this -- if they had have kept control of the children, I wouldn’t have said that because we did need better books. We did need better teachers. We did need people that -- a better school. See, when we went to Mount Pleasant, we went there and we had to go in the church. We used to have to go to school in a church. We didn’t have no school, walk, cold. And, now, look at the young people now, got a school bus to ride. When they get there to school, it’s warm. Got first-class books. And we had to get them old raggedy books that Griffin High done threw away, but we put them to good use. See, we put that stuff to good use. It was the same thing (inaudible) book, but they were old. Some of the pages was tore up, but we got what we were supposed to get. And that’s why I said (inaudible) school, that was a bad thing they did when they -- because they took the switch out of teacher’s hands. And when I was going to school every teacher had a switch. And if you (inaudible), he was going to whoop you, he’d send you to the principal. The principal would send you (inaudible), and he would whoop you. (inaudible) he ain’t going to whoop, he going to whoop (inaudible). He going to whoop you. I don’t know what kind of man (inaudible) was, but he (inaudible). And he would whoop you too. (inaudible) and take you home to your mama and tell her he whoop you and she going to whoop you again. And they had good children in school. We didn’t have no fights and all that. I used to go to the VFW Club (inaudible) police. We go there to dance all night, had all these famous bands here in Griffin. Didn’t have no police. You know who was the police? The members. They took care (inaudible). If he write you a letter say you barred, you barred. You couldn’t come here. You (inaudible). Down there at that hill and they see you, they call the police to come get you. You couldn’t come there. When he said you’re barred, you’re barred. You had to stay out as long as he tell you. They used to beg, go to the (inaudible) club, and beg, and let them come back. When they get back in that club, they was some changed young men. No fight. No cursing. We would drink a lot of liquor, but there wasn’t no fight, no cursing, everybody respect everybody. Never did have a fight over there, but (inaudible). Why? They lost control of it. Them folks was -- the young people -- generation done destroyed everything we built. The American Legion had to close it down. It done fell in. We built it. Now, they just all working on churches. Them folks going to take care of (inaudible) it ain’t what it used to be. The preacher used to -- could chastise the children. They can’t chastise them now. The mom and dad -- see, the breakdown is in the home. If you don’t raise your child at home, don’t put it all on the teacher. If you got a young man and you’re supposed to chastise him when he (inaudible) because you had him first. And if you don’t chastise him, how do you think the teacher is going to chastise him. You can’t do it. Well, see people back in them days, chastise them (inaudible) parent would chastise them children. They know how to act (inaudible) church down the hill that would tear that joker up. When he walk in that school, he’d know how to act. (Tony Hardin?) (inaudible) know how to act. Benny Hardin know how to act. We were well trained at home, but they don’t train them at home now. Every time you go there, you’re going to see mom and dad (inaudible) somewhere else and the children -- I used to come home at 12:00-1:00 at night. I see little old -- six and seven years old playing the street. I would stop. I said, man, where your mom and dad? I don’t know. See, we know where our mom and dad was at night. We know. We know to be at home before sundown. Everybody be in their own house before sundown in Experiment Station (inaudible). If we would have half of the discipline that I come up (inaudible). With the parents (inaudible) talking to the children like they did in my day, (inaudible). Why? Because the parents, they don’t make them work. We had to work. Everybody at Georgia Experiment Station had to work. We was little bitty six and seven-year-old boys, we had to, like I said, picking boll weevils out of cotton. If I asked mama for a penny, she’d say then you -- go out in that yard and pick up that match (inaudible) she said, I ain’t going to give you my money for nothing. Go work for it. That shows you how they trained us to work. And I worked till I got 62 and I had heart trouble. They took me to get a heart operation. And I never did miss a day out of school or off work. I’m talking about out of all them years. When I (inaudible) when I got out of school, I go there to the chemical laboratory. And the thing that Dr. (inaudible) and I setup, they were showing what they done did, I stayed there at night, sometimes like 7:00 or 8:00. He would help me get my lesson. He would show me how to do my lesson, but then I had to (inaudible) by 7:00 or 8:00 at night. And I’ll go -- when I through that (inaudible) to my (inaudible) wasn’t nobody down there. (inaudible) Georgia Experiment Station no way (inaudible). And so, I’d go in there, come in the backdoor, and come home. Now, when I was 10 years old in the summertime, I worked there the whole summer, but in wintertime with school time, I had to leave and go to school. CUNNINGHAM: When you talk about the Experiment Station and working at the Experiment Station and working with Director Stuckey and working in the chemical laboratories, it sounds like your experience at the Experiment Station was a good experience. So, what was the climate like for black workers let’s say throughout the city, the ones that may not have worked at the Experiment station? What were the working conditions like? HARPS: Well, everybody had the -- see, the law was then everybody downtown who didn’t work, they couldn’t walk the streets. You work on working hour or you better not be seen by the police because they would lock you up. WALKER-HARPS: Where was there to work? HARPS: Well, you had plenty of jobs, farms, (inaudible) people get to go to farm, you could work at the mills, you could work at the filling station. We had five grocery warehouses here. We used to have five grocery warehouses here and you had -- they have a lot of employees (inaudible) there was a job for everybody. CUNNINGHAM: So, what were some of the best places to work for black folks? HARPS: My best places, I was a truck driver. And I enjoyed driving the truck because I didn’t have no supervisor, didn’t have nobody telling me nothing because I know what I had to do. But, see, when I get on the truck, I know I had to work to get it unloaded, so didn’t nobody have to tell me. And every morning, I’d go there -- and so, they had people at night load the truck. And we’d go there in the morning and pick it up. And then, we -- sometimes -- now, I seen 12:00 at night (inaudible), 12:00 at night. Now, I had to (inaudible) back home. Well, it was a good job. Now, we made money. We made a living. I worked -- and so, when I left here, I went to Atlanta, went to work, joined the union, and the union -- see, the union is good. People don’t know it, ain’t been in there. They make people pay you. They make them give a percentage of what they make, union does. And they know how much money they made. We sat at a table like this. I was a shop steward. Shop stewards sat on this side, the company sat on that side, the president sat there, the secretary sat there taking notes of everything we said. And when we asked a question and the president questioning a carpenter about the working conditions and if something is going on in the company, we’d just (inaudible). We’d tell them we had to negotiate on it. Nine times out of ten, the union would win because we would go on strike. WALKER-HARPS: You were -- excuse me, you were a short distance truck driver. I mean, you drove to and around the surrounding towns. HARPS: Uh-huh. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. Okay. That was a period of segregation. What was it like in the rural towns where you had to go in terms of race relations? HARPS: Well, I didn’t have no problem, but I kept my mouth shut [01:06:00] and I did my job. You do your job, I -- like I go to your store. I sat there. If you have any (inaudible), I put (inaudible). But we have (inaudible). Sometimes, we go into the store where we have old folks and we scatter around (inaudible) over and then put it up. And so, I had a good relationship with the people that I worked, South Georgia, North Georgia, West, East. I had a good relationship. Everybody knows me. They had my name wrote on the truck. And so, when I go in a town, they would -- like this time -- like at Christmas, you see a lot of drunk folks, a lot of drunk folk. And there was a lot of mean black folks out there, like there’s a lot of mean white folks (inaudible). And they’d be drunk. They’d want to raise hell, which is what I always tell them. But I tell them, I said, no. And I go in the store and make that report about what he’s doing. Then, they come out there and they let him know that he couldn’t say that to me. Of course, I didn’t do it (inaudible). So, now, he don’t bother nobody. He come here and do his job. When he gets through, he’s gone. And then, nobody would -- the police or nobody wanted to touch me because everybody (inaudible) they know me. I had good relationships. South Georgia, North Georgia. Over there in North Georgia if you (inaudible) wasn’t -- now, for (inaudible) wasn’t no black people up there. No black people. I go up there on a Friday. I go up there on Friday. And, now, when (inaudible) started going down to Buford (inaudible) people in Buford (inaudible) the policemen in Buford (inaudible) go over there and get me and bring me with them over there. (laughter) WALKER-HARPS: Well, is that necessary? HARPS: Well, sometimes. You couldn’t be caught up there after sundown. Black folks couldn’t. And they got a river down there, they’d throw you in. (inaudible) he was up there and they throwed him in there. They said (inaudible), but they know me. If they missed me and I wasn’t there, they’d get in the car (inaudible) and get me. Now, I have (inaudible) that money that goes on the truck. I had to bring it back Saturday morning, had to go back there Saturday morning to deliver. They wouldn’t let me deliver it that night. And I headed all the way from Griffin back to (inaudible) County. WALKER-HARPS: And that was because you were black? HARPS: Uh-huh. Because I was black. (laughs) Hey, now, when (Cain?) come on the scene that’s when black folks went to (inaudible). They went up there. (inaudible) the one that -- Jose Williams, the one who got him in there. He made him -- because they had promised him -- they had (inaudible). Now, they took all them -- they took their phone and everything from him and run him away from up there. And the people in Buford, they didn’t like it. The white people in Buford didn’t like it. But they couldn’t control (inaudible) County, but they could control Garnett County. See, one county can’t control the other county (inaudible) the law they make, they make it. The smaller county, (inaudible). And they can’t run that. But the relationship with me with the people, I didn’t never have a -- I had one (inaudible) when that man slapped me down there in (inaudible). That’s the only (inaudible) I’ve had. And what (inaudible). He was the sheriff. He was the judge. He was the solicitor. He was the lawyer. (inaudible) with a .45 in his back pocket all the time. (inaudible) when he was running for governor. I was in Fayetteville (inaudible). He had a (inaudible) old flatbed truck. See, I know (inaudible) and I know Betty. I know both of them because we was in the American Legion together. So, he sees me standing out there on the truck and had all those white people there (inaudible). He said, now, a man with an overhaul and he works for 75 cents a day. They go woo. And every one of them had an overhaul. (laughs) Every one of them. Every one of them had an overhaul. And I looked at it. So, then he looked around some and he said, see that nigger boy sitting on that truck, if you elect me, he’ll be walking and you can have that (inaudible). They put (inaudible) in the governor. He put black children in the school buses. (inaudible) did. He did (inaudible). And so, I said -- one day I said, Governor. He said, what is it, Peewee? I said, you know what you said about me? He said, said a little nigger boy. I said, well -- he said, you get Mr. (inaudible) and read and see what nigger means in a (inaudible). Now, see, he said nigger, N-I-G-G-E-R. He didn’t say N-E-G-R-O. He said nigger boy and that (inaudible) you get (inaudible) and read it yourself. And I read it. The experience I got down the road with some white people, I wouldn’t take nothing (inaudible) because they really took care of me in North Georgia, South Georgia. Sam (inaudible) and his mama, they took care of me down there in (inaudible). See, I knew Sam before he got to be Senator. See, I know them all. I know everybody in Griffin. I know every sheriff (inaudible) in the surrounding counties. Every sheriff, I know them. Now, one of the biggest bootleggers there ever was in Fayette County (inaudible). And the next one (inaudible) right there in Griffin (inaudible). (laughs) See, they could do that stuff. I had a cousin. He was a chief detective member of the county. He’d just go and take drugs (inaudible) and get somebody to sell. I said, (inaudible). He said (inaudible). I said, man, you better stop this here what you’re doing. And Lawrence, he did it in Mayweather County. Them police wouldn’t touch him. I said, someone’s going to report on you. And somebody did. He lost everything he had. But, see, now you’re talking about crook -- now, you want to find a crook, you go to the (inaudible). And, see, they know I know. They don’t -- I don’t have no trouble with them. I don’t give them no trouble. And I don’t have -- right now, I don’t have no trouble with no law. I’m 89 years old tomorrow. Locked up one time (inaudible). And I had my trial. My mama come in there, had a pocketbook on her arm, cost me $15 to get out. She didn’t pay that. She turned her back and walked out of that jailhouse. And she said, I didn’t do it. You did it. You pay for it. Well, I paid $15 (inaudible) come get me, but his lawyer knows how to live. Lawyer knows how to be disciplined. Lawyer knows how to treat people. I love people to death. I don’t hate nobody. Of course, I’ve always helped them in the churches. And the preachers back then, they taught us to love everybody and if you read the Bible, it tells you, you got to love everybody. I (inaudible) God made me the color he want me to be. He made you the color he want you to be. We didn’t make ourselves, but we all are brothers and sisters. WALKER-HARPS: Okay. On that note, I think we’re going to bring it to a close. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Harps. CRUICKSHANK: Thank you very much. CUNNINGHAM: We appreciate you coming in today. HARPS: I appreciate being here. It was exciting to look at how they done improved this place (inaudible) over there. There wasn’t no trucks, wasn’t no cars. Everybody working. They had to walk to work, (inaudible) wagon. WALKER-HARPS: Like taking you back into time. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. HARPS: Yeah. See, it was exciting. I’m proud to see experiments at the Station like this here. If Dr. Stuckey was living (inaudible), he would (inaudible). He would shout for joy. You just -- when you were coming up here -- sometimes, I’d ride by here and look. I said this is the same place. I used to -- they used to have trollies in Griffin. And the way I got to high school, I had trollies and they cost me but a dime. I’d go in there and work in the morning. And by the time to go to school, I’d go out there and catch a trolley right out there. And I’d catch it downtown. And I’d come right (inaudible) and then I’d walk down through there to my house. So, we could get a little pass (inaudible) bus driver he would know. He would give me a pass or something. The (inaudible). He would always give me a pass and I’d go to school. He must see me going in that building where I went in the front door and went onto the chimerical laboratory and went to work. And I worked there and Mr. -- Dr. Pritchard he would be there and Dr. Holly. He just sat there in the office. He was over everything in the chemical laboratory. People don’t know if you get really into work, it’s happy. It’s joy. I used to see her go to school (inaudible). She enjoyed it (inaudible). She enjoyed it like I enjoyed my job (inaudible). And I was talking my little grandboy he drive tractor trailer. He said, big dad. I said, what? He said, I wouldn’t take nothing for it. See, I enjoy them. I’d say I know you do (inaudible) on that road 30 years (inaudible). He said I see why you stay on the road so long. I said because I didn’t have no boss,(inaudible). I know what I had to do. And I know how long -- they know how long it would take me to unload that truck and that’s what I did. When you got a job there, you went to work. They could send you anywhere (inaudible) work. WALKER-HARPS: Okay. HARPS: It’s good. WALKER-HARPS: Are we on or off? CRUICKSHANK: On. HARPS: You all keep going. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you so much. CRUICKSHANK: Thank you very much. END OF AUDIO FILE 2
test. txt heerre [00:01:0] there
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
RBRL418GAA-005.xml
RBRL418GAA-005.xml
http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
78 minutes
Location
The location of the interview
Griffin, Georgia
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Tommy Lee Harps, December 21, 2015
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA-005
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Tommy Lee Harps
John Cruickshank
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
African American veterans
Discrimination
School integration
Segregation
United States--Veterans
World War, 1939-1945
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-21
Description
An account of the resource
Tommy Lee Harps grew up on a farm in Griffin, Georgia. As a child, Harps worked at the Georgia Experiment Station along with his father under Dr. H.P. Stuckley, during which he attended Mount Pleasant Church School and later Vocational High School. As a young man, Harps fought in the European Theater of World War II. In this interview, Harps talks about his childhood, returning from WWII, and his perception of Civil Rights and changes to Griffin, Georgia.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Athens Oral History Project
Description
An account of the resource
The Athens Oral History Project was initiated in 2014 to document modern Athens history, roughly from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Interviews cover topics such as neighborhoods and communities in Athens, civil rights demonstrations, African American history, as well as personal histories of narrators.<br /><br /><span><strong>Content Warning</strong>: Some interviews in this collection contain harmful or distressing content, to include racism, racial violence, and racial slurs.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=1&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014-ongoing
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Athens, Georgia
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL361AOHP
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Athens, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
96 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL361AOHP-070/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
2022-10-07
Interview with Venus Jarrell, October 7, 2022
RBRL361AOHP-070
96 minutes
RBRL361AOHP
Athens Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Venus Jarrell
William Breeding
0
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_f6mgniz3&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_aulpabnx" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Venus Jarrell, Athens Oral History Project"></iframe>
0
Introduction
Okay, today is October the 7th, 2022…
Breeding briefly introduces Jarrell and describes how the interview will proceed.
Athens Black history
91
Childhood
My name is Venus Joseph Jarrell.
Jarrell recounts how his parents would make him work on the property with the animals in order to teach him the value of hard work. He talks about how his grandmother would watch him and his cousins while they were young instead of going to daycare.
agriculture;Columbus Washington;family relations;George Daniels;Hosie Daniels Jarrell;rural living;Sadie Daniels;Venus Alvin Jarrell
459
School / extracurriculars
Now where did you go to elementary school?
Jarrell mentions the schools he attended, sharing that he joined the band in elementary school playing the clarinet. He discusses his experiences traveling to band competitions as well as to compete for track. He emphasizes the spirit and energy that was found in their marching band.
4-H Club;Athens High and Industrial;Fort Valley State University;Herman Sheats;Lyons Junior High;segregation;Walter Allen, Sr.;West Broad Elementary School
1182
College band
Now I went to Mississippi Valley –
Jarrell shares that his college band was the first all-Black band to perform at the Rose Bowl in 1965. He talks about the band’s perception of other universities’ marching bands, and he stresses that Mississippi Valley had the third best band in the nation. Jarrell shows Breeding some of the art he has collected over the years in relation to his college.
cultural conditioning;Mississippi Valley State University;segregation
1772
Army experience
I dropped out of Mississippi Valley.
Jarrell says that he was drafted by the army and recounts how he found his way into the army band. He talks about the way white people treated him and elaborates on the effect brought about by being a musician and being in the military.
Fort Benning;Fort Leonard Wood;integration;Vietnam War
2173
Other music experiences
The other experience I had, when I went to Germany…
Jarrell shares that he and other army musicians from other countries would spend their nights at jazz clubs after performing. He mentions musicians he performed with in the US and how he went on the road with one of them for a short period before returning after being in a car wreck.
Belgium;NATO
2416
After the army
When I came out the army, I was hooked on drugs, man.
Jarrell describes his relationship with substance abuse. He talks about the jobs he worked while he was attending Athens Tech for marketing management and explains how racism began to affect his work life.
addiction;Athens Technical College;LSD;marijuana;opioids;race relations;Westinghouse Electric
2700
Integration / Klan activity
It was Black and white!
Jarrell shares that he was a part of the group that helped integrate The Varsity against the advice of his parents. He describes some of the stories he has heard about Klan activity during that time.
<i> If We So Choose </i>;demonstrations;Ebenezer Baptist Church West;Ku Klux Klan;protests;segregation
3065
Activity in Athens
I remember when a lot of Blacks had businesses on Hot Corner.
Jarrell recollects businesses from Hot Corner and his own experiences with them as well as the nature of the people who lived in The Bottom. He talks about various housing complexes and how they offered Black people better conditions. He emphasizes that, because he was a musician, he was treated very well and was welcome everywhere.
Broadacres Apartments;Ida Mae Hiram;Mack & Payne Funeral Home;Morton Theater;neighborhoods;Nellie B Apartments;New Town;Parkview Homes;public housing;Riverside;Rocksprings Homes;swimming
3553
Work
I had finished, and I had asked him about some of them jobs…
Jarrell explains how he became Assistant Director at the East Athens Community Center. He discusses how schools and their faculty handled integration through staffing changes.
Aaron Heard Park and Community Center;Bishop Park;Sandy Creek Park
3989
Bureaucratic racism
In the old days, when it was the city of Athens…
Jarrell describes how much more difficult it was to get resources and funding allocated for the parks often utilized by Black populations, as they would always end up being sent to a park usually used by white people.
Evelyn Corene Neely;institutionalized racism;Miriam Moore;Model Cities;Recreation and Parks Department;Virginia Walker
4266
Influential figures / record keeping
Alright, start from the beginning. This is your list.
Jarrell names teachers from his youth and from the Athens community who he considers to be impactful in his life. He talks about the discipline Black schools demanded from their students and the sense of community they fostered. He also shares some of his experiences in the workplace and describes how keeping records of his orders and communications became a way for him to protect himself from accusations.
Aaron Heard;Athens High and Industrial;community relations;Doc Roberson;George Hester;Howard B. Stroud;Josie Bell Fortner;Keith Heard;Lonnie W. Dickerson;Lyons Junior High;Michael Thurmond;Recreation and Parks Department;segregation;Walter Allen, Sr.;West Broad Elementary School
5039
Introduction to music
Number one: I grew up in the church.
Jarrell recounts the influence religion has played in his family, as many of his relatives are deacons. When he returned from the army, he began to play music in the church.
Christianity;Ebenezer Baptist Church East;Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church;musical instruments;piano;saxophone
5298
Last thoughts / conclusion
But my last question to you – well, two things.
Jarrell advises the younger generations to stay in church, abide by your parents, and get an education. He says that the time he’s most grateful for is the time he spent in the East Athens community.
Christianity;generational advice
oral history
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Venus Jarrell, October 7, 2022
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans--History
Athens Black History
Musicians
African American musicians
African American veterans
United States--Veterans
United States. Army--Soldiers
Music
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Parks--Georgia
Race relations
Community organization
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Venus Jarrell
William Breeding
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-10-07
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
rbrl361aohp-070
Description
An account of the resource
Venus Jarrell was born in Athens in 1946, where he attended West Broad Elementary School, Lyons Junior High, and Athens High and Industrial. He was an active band member in school and, after graduation, continued playing in the band at Mississippi Valley State University. In this interview, Jarrell talks about his time in the army (and the army band), his experience being Assistant Director at the East Athens Community, and individuals from his life he felt made an impact.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
Interview with Walter Pyron, June 1, 2018
RBRL418GAA-020
RBRL418GAA
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Walter Pyron
Jewel Walker-Harps
Be-Atrice Cunningham
John Cruickshank
Ellen Bauske
1:|13(28)|21(52)|25(22)|29(5)|32(14)|36(48)|40(56)|40(176)|40(313)|40(447)|40(598)|48(96)|48(248)|48(407)|56(97)|56(252)|80(22)|80(156)|88(43)|90(35)|104(17)|104(117)|116(3)|116(116)|116(272)|124(62)|128(3)|136(95)|146(95)|150(29)|150(188)|150(325)|150(486)|170(8)|184(2)|190(84)|190(241)|198(41)|206(99)|210(121)|214(92)|214(209)|214(320)|238(9)|242(83)|258(53)|288(8)|306(10)|332(89)|342(29)|376(9)|400(37)|446(13)|474(5)|498(7)|528(3)|534(31)|556(20)|576(53)|596(17)|612(16)|616(36)|624(63)|632(40)|632(150)|636(163)|672(7)|700(10)|726(10)|732(67)|740(6)|754(36)|790(11)|806(7)|814(52)|814(163)|818(113)|838(77)|846(27)|858(3)|874(48)|882(104)|896(30)|896(185)|896(309)|908(98)|912(108)|912(265)|916(122)|916(271)|928(49)|932(4)|944(22)|980(14)|984(24)|986(38)|992(84)|1004(71)|1004(197)|1012(84)|1020(7)|1048(8)|1062(14)|1066(31)|1066(139)|1066(226)|1070(7)|1076(4)|1104(14)|1124(2)|1124(111)|1126(3)|1134(7)
1:|21(11)|37(14)|51(4)|59(4)|74(8)|85(14)|98(4)|105(8)|113(10)|122(7)|131(14)|149(3)|158(11)|168(3)|184(11)|194(2)|223(6)|231(10)|248(11)|260(2)|281(2)|286(12)|300(4)|313(3)|322(12)|338(12)|350(4)|364(12)|381(13)|393(12)|404(6)|412(16)|422(14)|448(5)|467(8)|481(7)|490(14)|505(7)|521(6)|532(14)|545(5)|552(12)|560(2)|589(9)|601(2)|623(5)|656(8)|681(12)|712(12)|730(14)|768(10)|799(2)|849(2)|883(6)|914(8)|948(4)|963(12)|992(5)|1018(13)|1045(13)|1067(13)|1080(2)|1095(2)|1109(8)|1115(9)|1128(12)|1169(8)|1205(5)|1235(11)|1249(6)|1263(7)|1281(13)|1321(12)|1343(4)|1360(12)|1367(9)|1379(13)|1407(11)|1423(9)|1440(4)|1461(11)|1478(13)|1499(13)|1508(4)|1516(6)|1533(12)|1544(13)|1554(10)|1566(10)|1575(6)|1593(5)|1606(5)|1624(7)|1662(12)|1674(4)|1685(6)|1696(11)|1716(12)|1725(9)|1740(6)|1755(8)|1788(4)|1809(2)|1818(13)|1825(9)|1831(5)|1842(6)|1854(10)|1887(12)|1910(6)|1918(13)|1926(4)|1940(3)
Kaltura
audio
<iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_6ffy6xjs&flashvars[localizationCode]=en&flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&&wid=1_sb15lavh" width="400" height="285" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe>
48
Growing up in Griffin, Georgia
I was born in an area...
Pyron talks about his early childhood and his experiences growing up in the black community. Pyron recalls how he was not aware of racial discrimination throughout his childhood as the result of his upbringing and the homogeneity of his community.
Annie Schockley Elementary School;Griffin, Georgia
459
Growing up in Griffin, GA (cont.)
There was another minister that lived across the street...
Pyron talks about how his father became the minister of a church in Griffin, Georgia. Pyron talks about the ways in which the community's children would innovate to keep entertained despite having fewer resources in comparison to wealthier communities.
community;Griffin, Georgia;ministry;religion
879
Teachers of the Griffin community
She said that she asked my parents...
Pyron talks about how his first grade teacher and describes the community of his elementary school, Anna Shockley. Pyron talks about the ways in which the teachers participated in the Griffin, Georgia community.
community;Margaret Kendell;teaching
1255
Pyron's mother / The Griffin mill
My mama was the PTA president at...
Pyron talks about his mother's job as a maid, and how she eventually became a nurse after graduating nursing school. Pyron recalls the ways in which Georgian hospitals were segregated. Pyron explains the ways in which his mother pushed their family towards better housing and education. Pyron mentions that a local mill eventually started hiring African Americans shortly after mandatory integration.
Griffin Technical School;integration;nursing school
1653
Pyron's father
But blacks could get those kind of jobs...
Pyron talks about how his father's work as a custodian eventually led him to save enough money to own enough machinery to build an independent cleaning business. Pyron recalls how he would often assist his father in cleaning.
business;cleaning;Presbyterian Church
2005
Moving schools / Attending Fairmont High School
And we had to move up to Court Nimons...
Pyron talks about the series of moves his childhood family made after his elementary school burned down. Pryon describes his sixth grade principal of Moore Elementary, Mrs. Domidick. Pyron talks about how he eventually moved to Fairmont High School and some of the staff he knew growing up.
Dr. Tate;Fairmont High School;Moore Elementary;Mrs. Domidick
2392
Civil Rights Movements / Intimidation by the KKK
You talk about a school where it was family...
Pyron talks about how Fairmont High School's community urged a sense of professionalism. Fairmont recalls how members of the Griffin community participated in civil right events. Fairmont mentions some incidents he experienced concerning civil rights and interactions with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Fairmont recalls how members of the Ku Klux Klan worked to intimidate progressive members of the black community of Griffin, Georgia.
civil rights;Fairmont High School;Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
2869
Intimidation by the KKK (cont.)
Crosses were burned at their homes...
Pyron describes how after the mandatory integration of the Griffin community, leading members of the black community were targeted by Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members. Pyron talks about how African Americans who moved in predominately white neighborhoods had crosses burned in their front yards. Pyron recalls how integration led to the death of many black businesses due to the competition of local white businesses.
business;Ku Klux Klan (KKK);Triple 8
3249
Working in the Spalding School District
The Ku Klux Klan at one point...
Pyron and the interviewer discuss how the KKK threatened the Griffin, Georgia sector of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Pyron talks about how he eventually became the Assistant Superintendent of Spalding High School. Pyron explains that the process he went through to achieve his position. Pyron mentions how he was still treated fairly even in leadership positions at the school.
Ku Klux Klan (KKK);National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP);Spalding High School
3739
Challenges of administration
So can you tell us one of...
Pyron talks about some of the challenges he faced as the principal at the newly integrated school, Griffin Spalding. Pyron mentions an encounter he had with one of the teachers who attempted to frame him for the purpose of removing him from his position.
administration;Griffin Spalding;Griffin, Georgia
4170
The integration of Griffin High School
See, first they started sending...
Pyron talks about the integration process for Griffin High School. Pryon recalls how his brother, who was sent to Griffin High School, experienced prejudice at the school despite being an advanced math student. Pyron explains how, despite mandatory integration, discrimination lived in Georgian culture. Pyron talks about the impact of the Civil Rights movements on his college experience.
Civil Rights Movements;Fairmont High School;Fort Valley State University;Griffin High School;Hosea Williams;integration
4606
Band directing in Griffin, Georgia / The Vietnam War
And the first job I got in Griffin...
Griffin talks about how he became a band director at Griffin High School. Griffin explains how he was drafted into the Vietnam war after refusing to work at a schooling institution that was promoting unfair integration.
Fairmont High School;Ford Motor Company;Fort Valley University;Griffin, Georgia;Warner Robins, Georgia
4991
The Vietnam War (cont.)
I went to the army...
Pyron talks about how he avoided being drafted into Vietnam, as the war was ending around the time of his deployment. Pyron explains how he was instead sent to Germany, where he witnessed the affect the Vietnam War had on soldiers who were transferred to Germany for medical attention. Pyron talks about how he went back to school after the war, and received a masters in counseling and music.
Ford Motor Company;Ft. Louis, Kentucky;Germany;infantry;University of Georgia;Vietnam War;West Georgia College
5444
Administrative experiences / Attending university
After doing seven years as a band director...
Pyron talks about how he became the assistant principal of schools in Griffin before he became the first black principal of Futral Road Elementary School. Pyron recalls how he attended many schools. Pyron describes how he still gets compliments from some of his students for his work as a principal.
Futral Road Elementary School;segregation;University of Georgia
5871
Integration challenges / Religion in education
When we were working on...
Pyron talks about the difficulty of the process of dividing resources for schools during integration. Pyron also speaks about the difficulties of integrating religion into schooling, and opines the importance of religion in creating moral standards for students. Pyron talks about his wish for religion integration in public schooling as an option for parents who can't pay for religious private schools.
public schooling;religion;Spalding High School
6326
Concluding thoughts
With the changes in...
Pyron explains his belief that the separation of school and church has led to unsustainable family structures in the black community. Pyron talks about how the low-income community of the United States has developed a culture that is unstable.
African American community;education;religion
Oral history
rbrl418gaa-020_pyron BE-ATRICE CUNNINGHAM: All right, well, good afternoon. Today is June 1st, 2018. My name is Be-Atrice Cunningham, and I’m with the University of Georgia, Griffin campus. And joining us today is Mr. Walter Pyron. And we’re also joined by -- JEWEL WALKER-HARPS: Jewel Walker-Harps, president of the Griffin branch NAACP. JOHN CRUICKSHANK: John Cruickshank, librarian, Griffin campus library, University of Georgia. ELLEN BAUSKE: Ellen Bauske, program director for the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture. CUNNINGHAM: Very good. And today we’re conducting an interview as part of the Griffin African American Oral History project. So thank you, Mr. Pyron. Thank you so much for joining us today. And we’re just going to start off by talking a little bit about your early life. So if you could just tell us a little bit about your childhood. WALTER PYRON: Okay. I was born in an area of Griffin called Spring Hill. Now Spring Hill -- and we lived on Smith Street. Spring Hill is an area over near the Griffin Golf Course, and is not extremely far from the hospital. One of the things about the area is that you enter one row at the top of the hill, which is -- that’s called Spring Hill. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: And you go down, it goes all the way around and comes back out at the other part of it. From where we were living, we could see the golf course, and we could watch and see the golfers out there. Now blacks were not allowed to be on the golf course. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: If any time -- because being children, we would run out there and play on it when no one was looking. But if they saw us, they’d run us off. But between where I lived and where the golf course was located, there were some pine trees. So we could go into the pine trees and kind of hide and watch the golfers. It was all you know, it was just a beautiful sight out there, to be able to look at the golf course and to see all those people in those little carts riding around. It was exciting. But we would go out there and play. Spring Hill was -- I was born there, and we stayed there until I was 11 years old. But it was a place where the community was close-knit. It was segregated; there were no whites anywhere in the area. The elementary school that we attended was called Annie Shockley. Annie Shockley was an all-black school. It was a nice school, it was a brick school. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: And we -- everybody who lived in my neighborhood would walk there every morning. We did not see a whole lot of white people over there at Annie Shockley. We, as children, we didn’t hear a whole lot about racism or separation. My parents didn’t talk a whole lot of negatives about white folks, because my dad was one of these -- my dad was a custodian. My mom was a maid. And they worked for a lot of rich folks, and worked for a lot of white folks. So we never, early on, heard a lot of negatives. Now my dad had a place next to the house, and you would have called -- you would have said there was a “juke joint.” CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: Okay. So he ran the juke joint. A lot of times policemen would come over there, not necessarily because anything was going on, but they just kept an eye on it. And that’s when I would see the white policemen come down. To my knowledge, now -- and they wouldn’t share everything with us, I’m sure -- to my knowledge, there was never any real trouble at the juke joint, but it was one of those places where people went to enjoy -- I’m not aware of any alcohol being sold there, but I was a kid, so I cannot say for sure if those kind of things went on. I’m sure sometimes there may have been some skirmishes there. But none that I’m really aware of. So we were not exposed to a lot of that. My older brother, however -- CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: -- would go down there and was aware of the place. He was more aware, I think, than any of us. We were -- there were six of us, five boys, one girl. My sister was two years older than I am, and my brother, oldest brother, was four years older, and the rest of everybody was four years apart. We had a set of -- there was twins, so the rest of us, with the exception of my sister, all the boys were four years apart. And we had what would be a modified shotgun house. CUNNINGHAM: Hmm. PYRON: We had maybe -- to this day, I try to remember where did eight people, counting my parents, where did eight people go in that house? (laughter) Now we were smaller, so I imagine my sister had a room by herself. My older brother slept on the couch -- there was a couch that we could let out in the living room. And the rest -- and probably my brothers and me, my brothers and I all probably slept in the bed together. I would imagine there were three of us, maybe four, in the bed together, my sister and my oldest brother slept in separate quarters, separate beds. Again, my older brother probably slept in the couch. So that’s how we met -- my parents had a room. CUNNINGHAM: Right. PYRON: One of the four rooms. And when I say it was a modified shotgun house, meaning that you could look straight through it, but there was a room off to the side. And that, I think, is what we called a “modified.” The juke joint was in a building below. Over the 10 years that I was there, the juke joint became a store. My dad stocked, and became a store. Then he became a minister. It became a church. So by the time that we moved from that area to a better area, he was a minister. And when he went into the ministry, he held church at the building below. There was another minister that lived across the street, and often he would come over there and preach, and different folks in the community would come over and we’d have service there. Going to church was not an option, even when he had the juke joint. But that’s what happened. We lived -- Spring Hill was on a totally red clay street. We actually learned how to skate from the top of the hill down on that smooth clay, red clay. And actually, we were pretty good at it. But that was the innovation, the kind of things we made and enjoyed. They -- that was not, in that whole area, not a whole lot of people making a lot of money. But most of ev-- mostly everybody there worked, had a job. All of the neighbors that I interacted with, they were married. There were two people, two persons in the house. Most folks, we were six there were six children -- most folks had three, four, five children. Most of them had a garden in the yard because there wasn’t a whole lot of money coming in, but the people were hard workers. So most of them had a garden. We had chickens, and there was -- a hog would be slaughtered, and sometimes it would be shared with the neighbors, and so forth and so on. So we were basically happy children, having a good time. We used Chinaberry limbs to play Cowboy and Indians. We were fortunate enough to finally wind up with a television. Well, to have a television in the neighborhood then, it was a very popular thing. So everybody would gather around during the day when the parents were working and we weren’t in school, we’d gather around and look at television and just have a lot of fun. We had fights in the neighborhood, in terms of disagreements between young folks and the older folks, but they were all friendly fights. And we were all very -- we all got along fairly well. There were, in the neighborhood, some folks who occasionally would overdrink or get into a fight. One of the worst ones I ever saw was when I was going through the neighborhood, and two ladies were arguing. One of them had an axe, and the other one had a big stick. And so how she did it, I don’t know -- we were curious children, so we watched. And the one that had the stick somehow -- no, the one that had the axe somehow talked the lady who had the stick to put it down, and then she hit her with the blunt side of the axe. She did not die. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: Pretty tough folks. But it was -- I was always amazed at how she talked her out of that. And yet, we could go through the neighborhood, and folks didn’t bother us -- even my eyes were everywhere, and they would make sure your parents knew. It was a close-knit community. CUNNINGHAM: Right. PYRON: We were a diverse group of folks. But the children were watched. If anything happened, anything -- they would get on to you for doing anything wrong, you know, if you were in somebody’s yard and you shouldn’t be there, they were going to tell you. And they were going to let your parents know. And we were very -- the whole neighborhood was very close-knit. And that was one of the amazing things. Another thing that you don’t see as much of today as you once did, the neighborhood was clean. We had those straw brooms -- all the parents made sure that you kept your area clean, and you didn’t drop paper anywhere in somebody else’s yard or place. If not, they would make sure you pick it up. So it was amazing how clean it was in that area. You go down the street now, and you see paper everywhere. But part of that, too, was your parents teaching you. The other part was, when we went to Annie Shockley, you always cleaned your area. We had those broken-in shoes and hand-me-down clothes from older brother to younger brother. We was -- one of the things we cherished was to get one of those free lunches. And how you got the free lunch was, you worked in the cafeteria. Because most of the time we were taking potted meat and spam sandwiches. But every once in a while, you know, we couldn’t afford the cafeteria food. (laughs) So every once in a while -- I couldn’t wait for my turn, so I could go in there and clean up the -- wash whatever it was that we had to do in the cafeteria, and they’d give us a free hot lunch. Now that was a treat. Could you imagine the days when I wanted to clean up, to get a free lunch? (laughter) But that’s the way it was. And the staff over at Annie Shockley -- you talkin’ about protective folks, you’re talkin’ about a family kind of atmosphere, you’re talkin’ about everybody making sure that you were doing right and wrong, clean up your space. And dare you to be in a fight, because mom wouldn’t do it, or dad wouldn’t do it before you got home. And we all reacted to that, we all respected that. And we respected the teachers over there amazingly. They were unbelievable. Michael Kendall’s mom was my first-grade teacher. WALKER-HARPS: Margaret? PYRON: Uh-huh, Margaret Kendall. And I don’t know if you know Michael, but he’s -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes. PYRON: Okay. But she was my first grade teacher. And she didn’t have any children at that time. So -- and I didn’t know this, because she told the story later on at my retirement, she said that she took -- she asked could she asked my parents, could she take me home with her? At the time, people could do that, and it was no big deal. A teacher would take a child home, and there was no problem with the parents for allowing it. So she took me to the house. She lived over there off of 4th Street at that time, in one of the nicer houses that were around at that time. So she took me in there, and I got to meet her husband, Mr. Kendall, who worked at Griffin Tech in Fairmount for a long time, and got to meet him. She just treated me royally. And I was another big-headed, skinny boy at that time. I was just delighted. Loved Miss Kendall. Well, at my retirement, Miss Kendall told the rest of the story. She said she had wanted some boys. And she said, “I’m going to take Walter home,” well, may have called me Lawrence then, it was my middle name. “I’m going to take Walter home with me, and I’m going to pray that I get some boys.” True enough, she says she wound up with three. CUNNINGHAM: Oh, my. PYRON: She had her first child not very long after my staying at her house. She told that at my retirement. And I said, “I wondered about that.” But it was those kinds of things all throughout my time at Annie Shockley. In case you didn’t know, Annie Shockley is now called Anne Street. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: Okay. Anne Street is where Annie Shockley was. WALKER-HARPS: Did you know Ms. Shockley? Did you hear stories about her, what was it about her that had a school name for her? PYRON: No, I hadn’t. WALKER-HARPS: No, I don’t know, either. PYRON: No. Mr. Barty was the principal there. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, yes. PYRON: You know, he married Ms. Butler later on. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. PYRON: And she became -- Ms. Butler was a teacher there, at Annie Shockley. And Mr. Barty had another son that also went there, we used to all play over there at Annie Shockley. But he married one of the teachers later on, I think his wife passed, and he later married Ms. Butler, who is my second grade teacher over at Annie Shockley. And so it went through to the fifth grade, and once again, the protection, the encouragement, you know, we didn’t have a lot of parents there that had finished school. My dad, I think, went to the sixth or seventh grade, my mother went to the eleventh grade. And some of the students that were there, the parents didn’t even stay that long at school. But the teachers knew that. And most of the teachers live in the Griffin community. That’s something that’s a big change now. But they lived in the Griffin community, and particularly they were hold up mostly in the black community. It’s not like now where you can get an apartment or a house anywhere you want. Basically, they were around, not only at school, but you would also be around in the community. And many of them lived in some of the communities -- WALKER-HARPS: They have a choice. PYRON: It would be, like, the nicest house in that community. But -- or one of the nicest. But that was the restriction. But in some ways, having the teachers that close actually wound up being a plus. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: Because they became involved in the community in a different way than you might see now. So many of the teachers don’t live in Spalding, or they don’t live in the community where they teach. So that, I thought, was a plus, because they had a kind of a care for us that was so different sometimes than you may even see now. They were involved. They could come to your house, and would come to your house. They aren’t afraid to go anywhere in the neighborhood. And I think that’s a plus. I think that was a plus at that time. You could also see them at church. Parents could interact with them in a different way. And like I said, many, many teachers took students home with them, which you just wouldn’t see nowadays. That’s very difficult for some to do now, because it’s -- so many things are viewed differently than they were then. WALKER-HARPS: Do you know if any of those teachers are still alive today? I know there are a few from Cora Nimtz, but are there any from Annie Shockley that you know about, that are still living today? PYRON: That are still alive? WALKER-HARPS: I don’t know. PYRON: The last one I saw, well, besides Ms. Kendall, who (inaudible), she didn’t live too very far from there when they moved to their new house, the last one I saw for sure was Ms. Patrick. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. PYRON: Ms. Patrick was my fourth-grade teacher. And I ran into her over at the apartments. And she remembered me. (laughter) Yeah. I was over at her apartment, I’m trying to think -- I was over there, I can’t remember, it was, like, while I was in the area, but I was trying to find somebody, and ran to Ms. Patrick. And we had a good reunion there. And she talked about “parrot boy.” (laughter) WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. PYRON: But and mama was -- my mama was a PTA president at Annie Shockley. She was PTA president there. She later on became PTA president for Dr. Tate when he was at Fairmount. She was president for a year. Mama was -- started out as a maid. She then went to the Griffin Hospital as a aide, basically she would take care of the pans and so forth, and so on. Griffin Tech wanted to have a black class to learn nursing. It was going to be the first black class. Mama wanted to take that class, but she only went to the 11th grade, so she needed to do something in connection with, like, a GED test, or something like that. Anyway, she passed it. She was in the first black class to enroll at Griffin Tech -- it was called Griffin Tech at that time -- Griffin Tech, and she finished top in her class. Mama became a, what, LE -- LPN, Licensed Practical Nurse. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm? PYRON: She was an LPN. She worked at the hospital for 15, 16 years. She was in charge of a night shift floor. See, when they first started over at the hospital, all the black folks were on the first floor. Second floor is where white folks were. Third floor was just -- I think it had something to do with ladies. WALKER-HARPS: Gynecologists. PYRON: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. Obstetricians. PYRON: The fourth floor was where you had surgery. And when black folks needed surgery, they could go up in a particular room up on the fourth floor. When I was a senior at Fairmount, I worked -- I applied and worked as an orderly at the Griffin Spalding Hospital at that time. And again, the segregation was still there on the floor, but I worked as an orderly, and when I went to college -- the first time, I still worked as an orderly. It still had not integrated fully at the hospital. And sometimes worked in the emergency room. She stayed there, continued there, and eventually when the hospital started to change owners, she wound up going out working at Brightmoor, she was in charge of the floor there at night. She loved the night shift. As a matter of fact, when I worked at the hospital, I worked at the night shift sometimes with her. And then later on, she went out to Renaissance -- it wasn’t called Renaissance name -- the other nursing home. And she finished her career out there. Mom was smart and a pusher. And her whole determination was for all of us who wanted to go to college to go to college. And so four of us went to college, and four of us finished. That was her push. The other push she had was, she wanted dad -- my dad loved cars, so he was one of the few that had a black 1949 Hudson. It was talk of the neighborhood. (laughter) And but mom was determined that we were going to move in a better neighborhood. And as I say, when I was 11, we’d be at one of the few brick houses that blacks had over there on North 5th Street, not too far from where Ms. Molette used to live. WALKER-HARPS: Okay, right around that curve. PYRON: Yeah. Uh-huh. Ms. Molette, who’s the teacher, her husband had been a principal, hadn’t he? WALKER-HARPS: Yes. Mmm. PYRON: So we moved there, and of course, we -- my dad and all of us, we put in a floor, the hardwood floor, and things like that, and paint, and whatever we could cut corners on, you know, because that was a big move. And it was very hard for blacks to get a job at Dundee Mill. It was very difficult at that time, because Dundee Mill was employed the most people in Spalding at that time. I think the teaching was -- education had the second highest single population. Now, with the mills all closing in Griffin, I think education has the largest number now. So but that was the difficult -- now, if you were cleaning up and things like that, you could get jobs. Now, little by little, the industry began to change, and it began to employ black folks at the mill. But in terms of that process, it took a long time before they started employing folks at the mill. WALKER-HARPS: Except the Pepper Plant. PYRON: Except -- yeah, the Pepper Plant. The Pepper Plant, which was not very far from where we live, the Pepper Plant would employ. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. PYRON: But it was quite a challenge to work in the Pepper Plant. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. PYRON: And sometimes some people would say it’s somewhat dangerous. That was -- the Pepper Plant, you could smell, almost all over Griffin, when it operated. So you can imagine how it was to work in it. But blacks could get those kind of jobs pretty quickly. My dad cleaned -- was a custodian. As people used to tease, and they’d say to him, “Well, save some jobs for me. You’ve got all the clean-up jobs all over Griffin!” And we knew that, because as the boys got older, when I turned 10, it was my time to start going with him in the morning. And what would happen is, I don’t know if you know where Burger King is located now. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. PYRON: The Presbyterian Church used to be where Burger King is now. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: My dad, because the activities at the church and nursey then, all those kind of things, back in the day, my dad would take one of us, sometimes two, and every morning before we got ready to go to school, we’d go over there and help him clean up. He cleaned up -- he had that place, on Sunday morning after they had early worship, even though we would go to church, we would go by to straighten up so they can have a second worship. He had First National Bank, it was called some -- it was called First State Bank back then. Later on it became First National. He cleaned that up. We had several doctors’ office. And when I got a little older, I used to clean up for Dr. -- the optometrist who owned -- he was the only one in Griffin that owned a Rolls Royce. And I used to clean his office. And all of us had jobs. So like I say, there’s one guy, older, (inaudible). Dad’s dream was -- and he worked a lot of places and kept his money, he was stingy -- (laughter) but that was a good thing. It made us find jobs. CUNNINGHAM: Right. PYRON: When he -- he always wanted -- he worked on them until they finally built the First National Bank where it is now. We used to -- on Fridays, he served coffee to the customers coming in. He had a white coat, I would come up there after school and I’d go upstairs with him, because when they cleared out, we were going to clean up. But when he served coffee, I would go out there with them. And he started serving the coffee on Friday, and I think he started -- because Friday they stayed open until 6:00. I think we started serving the coffee around 4:00. People would come in there to get a cup of coffee, whatever, tea and so forth -- tea and so forth, and we would serve the coffee. Then we would clean up. Well, he wanted his own business. He said, “I’m going to have my own business one of these days.” And as he saved his money and so forth and so on, and as he had churches and really had a really good ministerial career, he bought machinery. He bought the big ones where it cleans and washes at the same time, fairly expensive machinery, and so forth and so on. He also owned tractors, and he would go down and had a garden -- had bought -- I don’t know if you know where the cemetery is in Milner, it’s a old -- it’s 100 confederate soldiers buried there, and they all have their little slabs. Well, there’s a property above there that my grandfather owned. When he died, the property was split up among the 14 kids that he had, that my granddaddy and grandmamma had, of the remaining ones. And so he did a -- he had a garden in that acre, acre and a half in Milner. And we were going to go down there and plow, and so forth. And he had a garden, he was in a new place where we moved on 5th Street, had a garden in the back. He still maintained a garden. My mother would do canning, and all those kind of things. But when he got the machinery and got the equipment and a carrier, and a truck, and all those kind of things, he had his own business. And therefore, he became an independent cleaner. And he cleaned stores like Piggly Wiggly, Big Apple. And he contracted with those folks. And of course, I finished school and was back working in Griffin, and I used to go with him, because I knew (inaudible) would take mom. But mom was still working. So I would be the one to go with him, because I wanted her to get her rest, yeah, even though I was working in Griffin. I’m going to stop now, so I can go -- CUNNINGHAM: Sure, go ahead, take a break. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. (break in audio) PYRON: Well, one thing that did happen at the Annie Shockley, Annie Shockley caught on fire. CUNNINGHAM: Oh! PYRON: I guess it must have been fifth grade. And we had to move up to Cora Nimtz. WALKER-HARPS: Okay. PYRON: Cora Nimtz was a small school, but thank heavens the building didn’t have a whole lot of folks. So we had to go there while they repaired Annie Shockley, and then we were able to return. When I left, when we moved then, and we went over to, like I told you, the property that’s near Ms. Molette -- WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm? PYRON: -- oh, okay. That’s right, because I keep turning that way. CUNNINGHAM: That’s okay. That’s fine. I just need to move it (inaudible). PYRON: Okay. CUNNINGHAM: When you moved to Molette? PYRON: Oh, when we moved over on 5th Street, then the school that I was going to have to go to then was Moore Elementary. Moore Elementary, I don’t know necessarily the history about it, but almost all -- behind it, but almost all of the schools were named after some person. And Moore Elementary I think may have been -- WALKER-HARPS: The Reverend Henry Moore. PYRON: Right. I don’t know if that was the same area where the old Cabin Creek school that my dad went to may have been located, but somewhere in that area, the Cabin Creek area, the older kids had gone to that particular school. But anyway, I went to Moore Elementary, and guess, of all, who was my sixth grade teacher? Mrs. Tate. WALKER-HARPS: I was going to ask if you knew Dr. and Mrs. Tate. PYRON: Yeah, Dr. Tate’s wife, very excellent, very excellent teacher, was my sixth grade teacher. There was a principal there, a female principal, named Ms. Dominick. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. Terrified of Ms. Dominick. PYRON: This Ms. Domenic came down the hall, she had a booming voice. And everybody moved. I mean, she was just intimidating, just to hear her talk. And we were little sixth graders, you know, we knew the move when she was coming. As a matter of fact, there was a guy in the room one day, and he’s Eddie, Eddie was much bigger than I was. Like I say, I was a little skinny thing with a big head. And Eddie was approaching, and just cutting up, you know, I guess because I was little at that time. He was just going to bully. And I got tired of Eddie. He just was going on and on and on, and I got tired of Eddie. And I stood up to him, like that, and I slapped him. And I figured he was about to pulverize me. By that time, we heard Ms. Dominick’s voice on the outside, and everybody froze. And Eddie didn’t do anything. He told me later on, “You did that because you heard her coming.” I said, “That may be true.” But nothing happened after that. Eddie went on about, just never bothered me again. I don’t know if it was because I stood up to him, or what. But he never bothered me. Actually got to be fairly decent friends. But anyway, Ms. Domenic was a tough lady, and respected by everybody. The fear, I think, was more in her voice, but she was very kind to students, especially as long as you behave and you were not cutting up. So she ran a tight school. But Mrs. Tate was just an amazing teacher. From that, I went to Fairmount. WALKER-HARPS: Was Dr. Tate the principal at Fairmount, where you went to Fairmount? PYRON: Mr. Daniels had taken over. WALKER-HARPS: Okay. Okay. PYRON: Dr. Tate had moved on to Fort Valley, where he became a he had a position down there, and later on he became the GAE president, and so forth and so on. And he was a part of my life at a earlier time, before I got to know him. You see, I wound up staying in Dr. Tate’s house. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, I know. PYRON: All of the folks who had been before me had become either principals or assistant principals. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: Mr. Walker stayed in Dr. Tate’s house, before finally moving out. That was the house up on 4th Street, which was across the street from Raymond Head, who later on became the mayor, the first black mayor, of Griffin. But it was Fairmount was a good experience. When I started at Fairmount in seventh grade, went through seven through twelve, and the school had -- it was about 1958, so the school hadn’t been built too long. It was a fairly new school. I’m thinking it was built ’57, ’56. But it was a fairly new school, because they moved from the old building up on the hill -- WALKER-HARPS: Vocational. PYRON: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And Mr. Daniels was there, I guess he would have been the first-year principal, because Dr. Tate had just left. And Mr. Daniels was the principal. Ms. Foster was my teacher that particular year. She was part of the county Foster, I think, family. And we had some tough boys in there. I saw her grab one of them one day and put him in a hug, and he couldn’t get loose. (laughter) She was a pretty tough lady. And he was a big boy. But we -- you talk about a school where it was family; the people wanted everybody to achieve. The expectation was, you behaved. I don’t know when the last time any of you may have been in a school where the seniors in the school all dressed up on certain days, they would put on suits -- WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: -- ties. And nobody was making them do it. This was just a part of the image. The teachers wore sharp dresses, suits, high heels. And those old ladies wore them all day, up and down those halls. Their professional look, their professional behavior, again many of them, most of them, were still in the communities, were still in the churches. And the professionalism there, the camaraderie there, the feeling of community, it was almost like you were living in a neighborhood with these folks, and you had that interaction to them. You tried your best not to get in trouble, because you had great respect for the schools. We had a very good football team. We were certainly more aware of segregation, because we’d all gotten older. We had -- there was participation in some boycotting. We had a store, McLellan’s, that was Downtown Griffin. And McLellan’s, it was like a 10 cent store. And they had a black-white fountain. You could go in, you could buy anything you want. You were watched very carefully, they generally had a cop, a policeman in there, and he particularly watched -- you were aware that he was watching you when you came in. And they would particularly watch black customers, young and old. You couldn’t eat at the -- it’s a little café they had in there. And it was boycotted. My younger brother was a little more outspoken about that at that particular time. And they staged a boycott, we stayed out of there. Finally, the store decided to get rid of the black-white, some years later, get rid of the black-white water fountains. And I think for a while they just took them both out, and nobody could use them. They then started serving blacks. So a group of us went in there just to test it, you know, we were high school. And we were all bold and brave. So we went in there to test it, and they served us burned hamburgers. WALKER-HARPS: Hmm. PYRON: And you know, but we knew -- we had already been told not to cause a ruckus, not to be over -- you know, impolite, and those kind of things. CUNNINGHAM: Were you told that by your family? Or were you told that by the teacher? PYRON: Well, it was a little bit of the organizers. WALKER-HARPS: Organization, yeah, when they were -- PYRON: It was the -- the communication was not to be violent, or anything. CRUICKSHANK: What year would that be, now? PYRON: That would have been -- WALKER-HARPS: Sixty-one, sixty-two, somewhere like that. PYRON: Somewhere there, ’61, ’62, because I had yet to go off to school. I didn’t go off to school until ’63. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: So it was ’61, ’62, right in there. Right in there. And there was -- those -- they were tense times. See, I mentioned about the neighbor, that Mr. Head, Raymond Head had a Clean Well press, laundry, served by blacks, whites would send all their stuff to him, because he was just -- WALKER-HARPS: The quality was worth -- PYRON: The quality. It was quality service. And he later on, like I said, became the mayor, the first black mayor of Griffin. Well, the Ku Klux Klan would do a parade where the post office is now. I don’t know if you ever been to the Griffin -- where the post office is now, the street coming up in front of the post office, the Ku Klux Klan would come there, making a lot of noise, and they would go right in front of Clean Well, which was on the corner at that time, facing the post office, I believe. And they would come up and they would march, and they’d just raise just a whole lot of saying. And they particularly, I think, targeted Clean Well. WALKER-HARPS: And the Triple H (inaudible). PYRON: And Triple H, that’s right, the Heads on Triple H. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. Mm-hmm. PYRON: And -- WALKER-HARPS: The three Heads, the Triple H’s. PYRON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. WALKER-HARPS: Raymond, Otis and -- it was Philip. PYRON: Yeah. Yes. And they would come in front of it, with all the colors, the masks, or some without masks. And they had a parade right in front of Clean Well. They would do that several times a year, trying to, I guess, intimidate, and so forth. CRUICKSHANK: Why were they targeting Head in particular? Because he was doing (inaudible)? PYRON: These were prominent blacks, Mr. Head, the Head family. CRUICKSHANK: Was he seen as being a leader of -- a Civil Rights leader, or something? PYRON: Well, I don’t know if they considered him a leader. But they were progressive blacks. CRUICKSHANK: (inaudible), yeah. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: And sometimes that brought about reactions. They were progressive. They were kind of downtown, so to speak. It was -- I know, well, it was Wall’s Alley? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: Wall’s Alley -- WALKER-HARPS: Because there were tight businesses at the time. PYRON: But they were on the corner, and it actually faced the CRUICKSHANK: That was not -- if that was where the post office is now, that was not in Fairmount community, was it? PYRON: No, no. This was strictly downtown. CRUICKSHANK: Okay. PYRON: Clean Well’s was located -- see, the post office used to be on the corner of where Clean Well was. But they built a new one across the street -- WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: -- where Clean Well would have been facing the new one. But it was right on the same corner of the old one. And therefore, it was downtown, where you got a black business downtown. WALKER-HARPS: Right. CRUICKSHANK: So you’re talking about where the main post office is right now? PYRON: Where the main post office is now, Clean Well would be just across the street, would have been just across the street from it. You know, the old post office, I think, they turned into a DUS, you know, something like that. But that was where Clean Well and Triple H was there, too. And these were two prominent businesses, and these were two prominent families, the Head family and the -- WALKER-HARPS: Crosses were burned at their homes. PYRON: Crosses were burned in their home. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: And it was touch and go in Griffin -- CRUICKSHANK: This was Raymond Head and Otis Head? PYRON: Raymond Head, Otis -- WALKER-HARPS: And Philip. CRUICKSHANK: How did they take it? I mean, how did they -- PYRON: How did what? CRUICKSHANK: How did they take it? I mean, were they intimidated? WALKER-HARPS: Not really. PYRON: Not really. WALKER-HARPS: Hmm-mm. PYRON: And I look at you, because she’s connected with NAACP. WALKER-HARPS: Not really. PYRON: Not really. WALKER-HARPS: And some of it perhaps had to do with -- if you remember when we talked, we are trying to get information on that biracial or human relations, or whatever, biracial committee which existed at that time. That had a lot to do with the paving of a semi-peaceful -- but they was not being any worse than they were. There were white folk who were working for, well, maybe not integration, but for peaceful survival of the races, as well as black people. So it wasn’t that they were just out there on their own. Miss. Millie Crossville, (inaudible), Raymond Head, and there were other white folk and black folk meeting together, Gary Reid, to ensure that it didn’t just blow up as it were happening in some parts of the country. So that had a lot to do with the fact that there was an alternative to being out there all on your own. You knew that they were -- PYRON: Yeah. CRUICKSHANK: So at the time, did you know any African Americans, like in Griffin, who really were in fear of their safety? PYRON: They burned, what was it, a cross that the teachers, the -- WALKER-HARPS: There were several cross burnings. PYRON: Yeah. But he had moved -- the gentleman -- the (inaudible) gentleman had moved over on -- over into what would have been a predominant white neighborhood. WALKER-HARPS: You’re talking about the Calhoun’s? PYRON: Calhoun. WALKER-HARPS: Calhoun, yeah. PYRON: Yeah, they burned a cross in his house. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. Yeah, we hope to bring her in here. Yes, that was Brooks? Wasn’t it Brooks? Somewhere in that neighborhood (inaudible). PYRON: Somewhere in that neighborhood, going down where -- what’s the street -- it would be over that area, there was a change in area. And -- WALKER-HARPS: And black folk were moving in. PYRON: Black folks were moving in. And the cross burning was an attempt to keep -- you know, to intimidate. WALKER-HARPS: To intimidate. PYRON: And the Ku Klux Klan going through downtown so boldly. Do you remember about when the Ku Klux Klan wanted to be in the Christmas parade? WALKER-HARPS: Vaguely. PYRON: Vaguely. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, vaguely. This is -- PYRON: They went to the superintendent’s house. CUNNINGHAM: (inaudible)? PYRON: And they wanted to be in the Christmas parade. True story! CUNNINGHAM: I believe you. I believe you! (laughter) PYRON: It’s good you edited. But they wanted to be in the Christmas parade. CRUICKSHANK: That’s crazy. PYRON: And they went to Dr. Greene, and they went up to the central office and they were trying to get Dr. Greene to allow them to be in the Christmas parade. And I’m thinking that -- what I cannot remember is whether he refused them, or they actually participated in it. WALKER-HARPS: I don’t remember. PYRON: Dr. Greene was superintendent at that time. CRUICKSHANK: Okay PYRON: Uh-huh. WALKER-HARPS: I don’t remember. But I do remember -- PYRON: But it was definitely requested to be in the Christmas parade, definitely. It’s a true story. WALKER-HARPS: Some of us were intimidated. I remember when we were having -- the NAACP was having something, some kind of program. PYRON: Yeah? WALKER-HARPS: And the Ku Klux Klan had threatened us. They had threatened. Where he’s talking about, where Triple H was, that was sort of the mecca of black business. Lon Touchstone had a (inaudible) building there. PYRON: Right. WALKER-HARPS: And that whole area -- PYRON: Area. WALKER-HARPS: -- was a growing black mecca for business. PYRON: They were thriving at that particular time, very successful. We all used to go to Triple H and eat. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. PYRON: And we’ve all used Clean Well. But Clean Well also brought in quite a white population, because they did very good service. WALKER-HARPS: Quality work. PYRON: Yeah, quality work. BAUSKE: I’m sorry, I don’t understand, what did Triple A sell or do? What was that business? PYRON: Oh, it was food. BAUSKE: Food? Grocery store? PYRON: Mm-hmm. Well, no, no, no, it was -- BAUSKE: A restaurant? PYRON: -- restaurant. BAUSKE: Okay. PYRON: Uh-huh. They were a very popular restaurant. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: Yeah, very popular. But almost -- so many of the black businesses died. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, yes. Yeah. PYRON: Died. WALKER-HARPS: And no more existed. PYRON: As integration came in, there were black-owned service stations, there were cleaning, just a number of businesses, Triple H. WALKER-HARPS: All along Slaton Alley. PYRON: All along Slaton Alley. And -- WALKER-HARPS: From here, straight down to that Street. PYRON: -- and some -- and a few of them were on the front street, facing that post office. And I think that is what just riled the Ku Klux Klan. And they really -- they really had problems with businesses being downtown, where other white businesses were located. And actually right next to the post office, it was -- CRUICKSHANK: The white business had to start competing with black and African American businesses, did they? PYRON: I’m sorry? CRUICKSHANK: You’re saying that black businesses were moving into other areas, so that meant the white businesses had to compete with African American businesses? PYRON: Well -- WALKER-HARPS: I don’t know if it was competition. PYRON: I don’t know if it was competition. WALKER-HARPS: But we (inaudible) us. PYRON: It was just the location. CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: It was prime. PYRON: I think the location of those businesses -- WALKER-HARPS: It was prime location. PYRON: -- being downtown -- CRUICKSHANK: Yeah, oh yeah. PYRON: -- with other white businesses riled the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan, at one point, was fairly active about presenting themselves. I don’t know, other than going across, I don’t know if anybody was just -- WALKER-HARPS: Well, I know we were intimidated, and almost not having a program during that period of time, the NAACP, because of the threats to me and to Jimmy Holland, who also owned a business on the corner, right there at the side. PYRON: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: Triple H businesses. And we were the ones who were named. So we had to get the Atlanta, the state, to come down, and they demanded that the building be swept with dogs, and whatever. PYRON: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: And every precaution taken before we were allowed to go in that building, not to get that -- CRUICKSHANK: How were you threatened, like, in what form did the threats come? WALKER-HARPS: Well, if they -- I don’t know what the writing was now that was on thee -- PYRON: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: -- and whatever else. CRUICKSHANK: Writing on walls? WALKER-HARPS: On the businesses. CRUICKSHANK: Yeah? WALKER-HARPS: And names -- you were named. That’s how I happened to get in everything, my name was used. So I knew I was not about to (inaudible) -- CRUICKSHANK: Maybe they were writing on business walls, or what -- WALKER-HARPS: I believe there was a message left, if I remember correctly. CRUICKSHANK: Oh, okay. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. At the stores. PYRON: You would tend to receive things in the mail. CRUICKSHANK: Oh, okay. PYRON: I’ve never mentioned this before, Jewel, you remember back when I think you were down talking to Board of Education? And at that particular time the position was open for superintendent. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: Well, I had applied for it. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm? PYRON: And not really expecting to get it, but I had applied for it. And I received a letter. I never mentioned this before. I received a letter, and what they did with the letter is, it had -- they had cut out stuff from somewhere else and probably had gone -- maybe mailed it from Atlanta somewhere, some other town, and not Griffin. And what it said was, “No nigger who’s a part of the NAACP will ever be superintendent in Griffin Spalding school system.” And that letter came to me in the mail. It had to be somebody who was somewhat -- I always had my suspicion, but that came to me in the mail. Now I had never had mentioned it before. WALKER-HARPS: Well, you may not have mentioned it, but there were people at my school watching my car, who would check my car before I got in it every evening, every afternoon, before. Once (inaudible) and went in, there were people who monitored my car throughout the day, and checked it before I got in, for the bomb. CRUICKSHANK: Checking for bombs? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: Because you never know. But whoever it was certainly know where I stayed. And but nothing -- nothing else happened after that, because the election was over, and it was done. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: And we wound up with a superintendent, that we because best friends. He was from Tattnall County. But things -- interesting things happened. BAUSKE: Did you ever end up working in the central office? PYRON: Oh, yeah. BAUSKE: In the superintendent’s office? PYRON: Yeah. I wound up being assistant superintendent. BAUSKE: Okay. PYRON: Uh-huh, yeah. And Dr. Bradley, when Dr. Bradley came, I had been what Mr. Walker was, administrative assistant. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: And the first thing that Dr. Bradley did after he got there was, he promoted me the first black assistant superintendent. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: So I was the first black assistant superintendent. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: Then the guy who re-- I stayed over there 10 years. Then the gentleman who came to take my position as assistant was Curtis Jones. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: I trained Curtis Jones into my position, then I retired. And after when Dr. Bradley left, then Curtis Jones became the first black superintendent of Griffin Spalding. CUNNINGHAM: How does that make you feel? PYRON: I’m very proud of that. Very proud of that. Curtis was a good guy. And he did a nice job before moving on to Macon. But it was -- see, when I applied, it was 10 years before -- 14 years before Curtis finally took over. So the time when I applied, it just wasn’t right. It just wasn’t going to happen. But I did it anyway, to put the name out there, because I think the effort needed to at least be made. But Curtis came 14 years later, and things had changed a little bit. CUNNINGHAM: It sounds like you paved the way. WALKER-HARPS: Having been there, he paved the way. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. WALKER-HARPS: But also, Dr. Bradley opened some doors that would not have opened. PYRON: He sure did. Because he immediately made me assistant superintendent. And I was the first to have that position. So I -- and Dr. Bradley and I, we still go out to eat now. We’re good friends. Good man. CRUICKSHANK: Mm-hmm? WALKER-HARPS: That spoke millions, because having come from a rural, Southern area in Georgia to come and be able to (inaudible) -- PYRON: Not only that, he worked for Paul at the prison system down in -- WALKER-HARPS: Reidsville. Reidsville State Prison. PYRON: Reidsville. He worked in Reidsville prison. But he wasn’t -- he was a very open man. WALKER-HARPS: He even liked me. PYRON: Yeah. (laughter) I mean, he was different. He was a guy that you would like. CUNNINGHAM: Well, it sounds like Dr. Bradley was different. But what about everybody else within the system where you were working? How were you received as being the first black superintendent? PYRON: Assistant superintendent. CUNNINGHAM: Assistant sup-- that’s what I meant to say. PYRON: What happened was, I had been a principal at the ninth grade for seven years. I was the first black principal at the ninth grade. Before that, I was the first black principal at an elementary school called Fourth Ward. So I had gone through, you know, about -- I was well-known in the system. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: And most of my staffs at those predom-- the white schools were white. So the interaction was good. I -- we -- they were just treated fairly, and believe it or not, I was treated very fairly, even in schools where I walked in and, you know, 70, 80 percent of your staff is white, and same things in the eighth grade, 70 percent of your staff is white, or 75 percent. But when they were trying to decide who to hire because the white gentleman, Mike Bryans was leaving, the staff that knew me when I was there as an assistant put in a word for me, that we’d like to have him back over here. WALKER-HARPS: Oh. PYRON: So it was a good transition. Not to mean that you didn’t run across a person here and there that you had to deal with, and the parents had to adjust to them, you being the first black guy -- CUNNINGHAM: Sure. PYRON: -- in the school. And as one parent told me at the ninth grade, he said, “I was so sure that you were going to be prejudice toward me.” And he said, “But I have to admit, I was wrong.” He said, “I have to admit I was wrong.” CUNNINGHAM: So can you tell us one of the greatest challenges that you faced as a principal at an integrated school? PYRON: When I first went into the integrated -- to the first school, the elementary school, it was one of those elementary schools where it was fourth grade through sixth or third grade through sixth. Because at that time it was split up. And part of the kids were going -- children were going to Anne Street, which used to be Annie Shockley. And the upper part were going over to the school where I took over. Well, there, I was warned of one lady to be very wary of. The woman was -- and I got it from one of the administrators -- the woman was, she would take you down. Be very careful. She had all kind of attitudes. BAUSKE: That’s not a good warning. PYRON: It’s not -- (laughter) no, it’s not. And you’re going into your first principalship, too. BAUSKE: That sounds like a threat, not a warning. PYRON: Just be careful. Well, lo and behold, I remembered that. And the administrator told me that. He said, “Now be careful. She would take you down.” Very pretty lady, pretty blonde lady. Said, “Be careful.” So I went there, and lo and behold, before you looked around, she was causing trouble. She had a run-in with one lady, she had caused some difficulty. Well, I had to discipline a situation where she was involved. I had a counselor, very good counselor. And she was white. But I loved her to death, she was, I mean, just a good lady. And I told her, I said, “Now if ever I have to call you and I’m in my office, come immediately. Something would be up.” I said, “I don’t want to get set up.” BAUSKE: Hmm. PYRON: Something will be up. Well, she came in my office one day in a rage. And she bent over my desk. By that time, I hit the button to Nana, Nana came in right away, because I knew where this was about to head. Nana came in right away, and she stayed there. And she stayed there the whole time. And the lady had no choice but to calm down. But I knew I was about to be in the process of being set up. After that, at the end of the year -- by the way, she had come in with a lawyer, and all that kind of stuff, later on. Later on, she came in with a lawyer and all that kind of stuff. But end of the year -- but nothing came of it, because she had nothing, because I had Nana. Nana’s one of those persons, if you want to trust, Nana was rock solid. At the end of the year, guess what she did? And I think one day she came in with a lawyer and her husband. She resigned and became a stewardess. BAUSKE: A stewardess? PYRON: Yeah. A stewardess. CRUICKSHANK: Was it African Americans she had a problem with? Or just people generally? PYRON: It was an African American administrator that warned me. She was difficult in general. CRUICKSHANK: Yeah? PYRON: But I think I brought rage out of her. WALKER-HARPS: But Nana was a fair-minded -- PYRON: Huh? WALKER-HARPS: Nana was fair-minded. PYRON: Oh, Nana -- Nana. WALKER-HARPS: She was white. And you couldn’t ask for a better person. PYRON: Lord, have mercy. Mmm. BAUSKE: Just for clarification, she was trying to set you up with sexual harassment, or something? PYRON: I -- BAUSKE: That was your guess, then? PYRON: -- believe that’s what it was. BAUSKE: Yes. PYRON: Because she -- you know, people don’t come in your office and just come all over your desk like that. BAUSKE: Right, right. PYRON: And I was pushing back. BAUSKE: Yeah. PYRON: By that time, Nana was in the corner. (laughs) BAUSKE: Yeah. Yeah. PYRON: But I -- CRUICKSHANK: All she would have to do is start yelling and make a scene, and (inaudible) questions -- PYRON: Yeah. I told Nana, say, “Any time I hit that buzzer” -- CRUICKSHANK: Yeah? PYRON: -- “you come immediately, because something’s going on.” And see, she -- what happened, I knew something was coming. She walked -- you know, people don’t generally walk in your door and slam your door shut. And I knew there was about to be a problem here. So thank heavens for Nana. Yeah. Yeah. If Nana hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have gotten out of that. No way I was going to stay in that (inaudible). CRUICKSHANK: So that was the end of it? Just that (inaudible), that was all it took to clear the whole thing? PYRON: That was the end of it. She had nowhere to go with it. And I wouldn’t -- and after that, I wouldn’t be -- if I had talked to her, it was out in the open. CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. PYRON: Yeah, I’d go down -- Nana would always travel with me. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: See, that was early on, we’re talking about 19- maybe ’85? WALKER-HARPS: Probably, yeah. BAUSKE: Nineteen eighty-five? PYRON: Mm-hmm. CRUICKSHANK: That recent? PYRON: Mm-hmm. PYRON: That was just about the year or so before I finally went to the ninth grade to become the first black principal over there. CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. PYRON: Then ninth grade was a whole different animal. The people, the teachers there -- ninth grade had a very good reputation as being an excellent staff. And it was. The ninth grade had a very excellent staff. It was a whole different staff. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: Whole different attitude. They embraced me in ways that I never thought they would have. Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: Would you think that the fact that the choice was eliminated because there was one ninth grade, one seventh grade, one eighth grade, one ninth grade? Or what was it, the way we had it, it was structured? During the planning of the integration, yeah. PYRON: Oh, during the planning of integration, and like I said, 1970 when they started making those changes -- WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm, ’70, ’71, ’72. PYRON: -- because my brother -- see, first they started sending -- to be perfectly honest with you, they sent some of the smarter black students from Fairmount over to Griffin High School. That was the beginning of it. And my brother, one of my younger -- my younger brother, Wayne, was a -- was a very good math student. Matter or fact, he went on to later on have a career in technology and math, and stuff like that. But anyway, he was one of the ones that went over to the Griffin High School. They were sending -- like some of Fairmount’s brightest. And it was just a few of them. He hated it. He hated it. He was smart, very good at math. And he just couldn’t understand the treatment, the subtle treatment, the little jabs in the language. And he absolutely hated it. CRUICKSHANK: Was it coming from teachers, or --? WALKER-HARPS: Wayne was not the comeback county kid, either. He was -- PYRON: Huh? WALKER-HARPS: -- Wayne was very mild-tempered. PYRON: Right. WALKER-HARPS: And he would not have been -- out (inaudible), he would not have made an issue out of it. He wouldn’t have. PYRON: No. It just -- I think it just really threw him back. I had to talk to him later, because he had a kind of an anger that -- CRUICKSHANK: But who was the treatment coming from? I mean, the teachers, or the students? PYRON: You know, sometimes it can be so subtle, and just sometime that students would tend to be a little more open. CRUICKSHANK: Oh, yeah. PYRON: Teachers can do it subtly. And I think -- I think it just wore on him. He was having a great time at Fairmount. All of a sudden, the whole atmosphere changed. CRUICKSHANK: So did that continue after integration? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: For a while. CRUICKSHANK: Yeah? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: For a while, when all of them got together. My first job, it happened during the time, the ’70s, my first job in Griffin was around ’74. And -- WALKER-HARPS: Do you remember the young man who earned the right to be valedictorian, James Walker, and that was (inaudible)? PYRON: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. PYRON: Stuff like -- WALKER-HARPS: They didn’t have a valedictorian, rather than to have him. Things like that. PYRON: Things like that. It was just subtle -- BAUSKE: How did they deny that to him? PYRON: Well -- BAUSKE: They just named some other kid? WALKER-HARPS: They just decided they wouldn’t have a valedictorian. BAUSKE: They didn’t have one that year. PYRON: See, you don’t -- now you could fight it differently. BAUSKE: But you couldn’t -- PYRON: Back then it was still not a whole lot of control you had. Segregation -- I mean, segregation was ending, but full integration was still a slow process. There are subtleties that you can do that you can carry out anger for years, and resistance for years. You know, resistance can be a very subtle thing. CRUICKSHANK: How long did that go on? Like, what year would you say it disappeared, if it disappeared at all? PYRON: Well, when I went to the seventh grade in ’74, I went as a band director. I came out of the Army in ’72, and that’s another story. I have to tell you why I ended up in the Army. BAUSKE: We skipped college here somewhere, too. PYRON: Yeah. BAUSKE: (inaudible) PYRON: Okay. Okay. Well, of course I went to Fort Valley State. BAUSKE: Uh-huh? PYRON: And a lot of things were going on even at Fort Valley State. Hosea Williams came down to Fort Valley State because some -- because there was some concerns happening in Fort Valley at that time. Hosea and different folks were traveling a whole lot of places. And so they were doing some kind of (inaudible), or something, in Fort Valley, as I recall. I remember being at a meeting. Once they see people with their -- Gary Reid was down there once, wasn’t he? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: But anyway, there were -- that was, you know, subtle things going on, resistance at this place, resistance in this plant, resistance I this job -- those things still happened, even though laws had been passed. So sometimes, to get things going, people still had to visit the places (inaudible). But I finished Fort Valley, and I had gotten a scholarship for band. Mr. Tucker -- Mr. Tucker, who was an outstanding teacher at Fairmount and a very good band director, and a gentleman, a man of class you just loved. But he looked out for and got scholarships for a lot of band students, because Fairmount had a very good program on -- we went to the stage on Friday night Saturday night, excuse me -- Griffin High School used the stage on Friday night, we had it on Saturday night. Fairmount was on 3rd Street. So we always lined up, and we would march from 3rd Street, where Fairmount was located, all the way to the stadium, which was a pretty good walk. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: But along the way, to show you black pride, it was like a parade. The streets were filled on the side. They watched us as we marched, the blue and white. And it was an excellent band. That was -- so every Saturday night we played in Griffin was like a downtown parade. But Mrs. Tucker just had a respect in that community, that just was amazing. And the first job I got in Griffin was Mr. Tucker’s, he had retired and I became the band director at the seventh grade. At that time, he was no longer Fairmount, because the integration made it all seventh-grade school, and an all eighth grade school, and an all ninth grade school. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: They just said, look, we’re just going to pile them together, and be through with it. BAUSKE: Mm-hmm. PYRON: And that’s what school -- BAUSKE: Your degree was in music education? PYRON: Was in music education, to start off. BAUSKE: Uh-huh? PYRON: Yeah. And -- oh yeah, thank you. When I -- I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, the humidity and heat -- WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. PYRON: So I was -- thank you. I was at the seventh grade, and then what happened, the reason I got the job was, Laymon Hathaway, the principal of the school, I was working -- when I came out of the Army, I was working at Ford Motor Company. You know, I couldn’t find a teaching job when I came out of the Army. So I worked at the Ford Motor Company. At that time, the plant was up in Hapeville. And I worked there for two years. We were doing 10 hours a night, 5 days, 8 hours a night on Saturday. Ford was putting out cars left and right. And that’s all I did. I went to work and I slept, ate, and went back to work. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: Finally, Mr. Tucker retired. And we went to his -- they gave him a great retirement. And I had taken a day off from going to Ford to substitute at the seventh grade. It was called Spalding Junior High, Unit Three. At the seventh grade, Mr. Hathaway, I didn’t know was outside, the principal was outside looking at me work with the kids. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: The kids were having a good time, I was enjoying the music, we was all having fun. It was just a great session. When Mr. Tucker retired and I applied for the job along with some other band directors, he remembered the day that I’d taken off and come down there and substituted. I lost $150 for $250. But it was worth it. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: And so he hired me. And that started my career. BAUSKE: How did you go from college to the Army? PYRON: Okay, that’s going to be a civil rights story. I graduated from Fort Valley, and had started working first at Warner Robins, Georgia. I was going to several schools, teaching band. Then from there -- BAUSKE: May I ask what year this was? PYRON: I graduated in ’68, so it would have been probably ’69. BAUSKE: Mm-hmm? PYRON: So I worked in Warner Robins, and I -- the next job, which was a higher-paying job -- I’m sorry. I was in Butler, because they were integrating the schools in Warner Robins, and they were going to turn that high school into a middle school. BAUSKE: Mm-hmm? PYRON: So I went to a high school in Butler, Georgia, Dr. Hicks. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, Charles Hicks. Charlie Hicks. PYRON: Big GAE person. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. PYRON: So I went to Butler, and during the end of the year, Butler, they wanted to integrate the schools, it was all-black schools that particular year. But they wanted the girls to go to one school, and the boys to go to the other. We thought that unfair. The black -- because you’re separating because you don’t want white girls around black boys. BAUSKE: Yes. Yeah. PYRON: That was the bottom line. Dr. Tate came down and talked to us, and he was with the other GAE, the GTAE. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. PYRON: He came down and talked to us and said, “Well, you all have got a decision to make. You can hold out your contracts and see if you can put pressure on them.” Now here’s the thing that you’re going to learn very quickly; I was a very young man then, you know, 21, 22. Everybody supposedly agreed that they were going to hold off signing contracts, hoping to pressure them into not having an all-boys’ school and all girls’ school, just because they was afraid of the white girls being around black boys, and vice versa. Well, some of the people did hold out, but some of them went ahead and signed. That was what you call a life lesson. BAUSKE: Mm-hmm? CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm. PYRON: Well, so when I found out, when a bunch of us found out what had happened, some of us tried to go back and see get our contracts back. No. By that time they’d hired new people. So a bunch of us were left out without a job. Without a job means that you’re open to the draft, the Vietnam War was still going on. BAUSKE: Mmm, (inaudible), yeah. Mm-hmm. PYRON: Yeah. So guess what? BAUSKE: So you got drafted. PYRON: I got drafted. Came to Griffin. Believe it or not, Norma Williams rolled up there with the group that went into the Army, got drafted. I tried very quickly to try and find another job. I could have gotten a deferment if I could, but it was so late in the -- so I went to Griffin. I went into the Army, I went to Fort Lewis, Kentucky. Went to Louisiana, Fort Polk, Louisiana, which was a very interesting experience. I laid out in a bus like everybody else. I did the running. See, I was an older guy, I was, like, 24 then, 24, 25 then, going in. So I was going in as one of the older guys. Most of those guys was 18, 19, and could run like rabbits. So I went in, and I had my orders to Vietnam. I was also Infantry, which means I was going to be on the front lines. So you could imagine the changes you go through, but I said, life is as life is. You go over and do what I need to do. So I got up to Fort Lewis, Washing-- I came -- after basic training and advanced, they gave us orders, and I was going to Vietnam. And Nixon had started calling the Infantry troops home. So when I got to Fort Lewis, Washington, there was an order change. They wanted the Infantry soldiers to go somewhere else, they didn’t want any more Infantry soldiers going over. They wanted the people who trained as clerks to come over there, so that they could process folks out. So we went, the group that was me, we went to Germany. BAUSKE: (inaudible) (laughs) PYRON: Yes. Yes. Yes! BAUSKE: (inaudible) PYRON: I said, Lord -- BAUSKE: So it was Germany. PYRON: I spent 13 months in Germany. They didn’t want us to stay the whole time after 13 months, because -- and while over there, on a sad note, you saw soldiers coming over, and they were sent to Germany for a break before they sent them home, and some of the guys were just really messed up. One guy came there, and he had gotten on speed while he was there. And we had tried to talk to him, and tried to get him to settle down and stop taking that speed. And he was about off of it. Then he went home -- smart guy he went home, and his girlfriend had dumped him, and he hung himself. BAUSKE: Mm-hmm? PYRON: Yeah. And they sent word back to the barracks, he was a likeable guy, you know. Just a good old guy, just kind of got off on some things that he shouldn’t have. But when he went home and his girlfriend had dumped him, it was too much for him, and he hung himself. But in general, we had we spent 24 hours out in the -- I was on the naval site, when we were watching the silos, the bombs, I mean the rockets that are inside the silo. And we spent 24 hours out there. You sleep four hours in a little hut, and then you go four hours where you walk into town, and making sure that -- because they actually had -- I forget what they call them, but they had people who attempted to break in silos because they wanted to blow them up. But I must tell you, the experience in Germany was amazing. The history, the cathedrals, the castles -- we did our jobs, but then you worked one day and you had two days off. Once you get through basic and advanced training, believe it or not, it’s not that bad. It becomes a job. Except, like I said, if you were in Vietnam, that’s a little bit different, yeah. But anyway, so after finishing the Army, I came back, I worked at Ford Motor Company. I final found a job, you know. I was married at that time. So I had to find a job, then before you know, the baby’s on the way. BAUSKE: Mm-hmm. PYRON: So Ford Motor Company did me well. But then Mr. Tucker retired, so I got Mr. Tucker’s job. I went to Georgia State during the time when I was working at Ford, I started going to Georgia State. So I got a degree in -- a master’s in counseling, and certification at the master’s level in music. So I stayed at seventh grade. And then for seven years, go into a couple of elementary schools, and then ended up (inaudible) the seventh grade. From that, I went to West Georgia College. And West Georgia College, that’s where I got my six years in administration. I then went to University of Georgia. I had to pass the GRE first, so I worked on my math for a year. I was at Whalen, in the verbal section. But I worked on my math for a year, with all that refreshing the algebra, and so forth. Then because I didn’t want to write a letter to get in, I wanted to get in just like everybody else. So GRE score was good. Got into the doctorate program. Dr. Holmes at University of Georgia, I don’t know if he’s still there. But he was my mentor and advisor. And I finished University of Georgia with a doctorate in about a year and a half. I went to the summer. And I had to pay for one quarter, you had to do three quarters of your dissertation, or something like that. And I had to pay one quarter while I was doing nothing, we were not doing anything because we had already finished it. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: And Dr. Holmes gave me an opportunity to come down there and work. But at that time, I had gotten -- I was ready -- I had gotten ready for the ninth grade, and I was just going to start after leaving Fourth Ward. So I didn’t go. CUNNINGHAM: Were you going to school and working at the same time? PYRON: Yes. When I was -- BAUSKE: Yeah, with UGA so far away. PYRON: Well, what happened was, when I was an assistant, after doing seven years as a band director in the seventh grade, I was then hired because I had gotten the certification. I was then hired as assistant principal at the seven grade for three years. So Dr. Greene, who was the superintendent then, said, “Well look, I want you to go over to the ninth grade and be assistant principal there.” I said, “Okay, doc, if that’s what you want.” He says, “Don’t worry, but I need you there right now.” So I went over to Mike Bryans for two years, and was assistant principal there. I left there, (inaudible) followed me there. I left there and went -- I was assigned principal at Fourth Ward, which was the elementary school for a year. So that was my first principalship, and first black principal there. After that year, Dr. Greene, when Bryans left the ninth grade where I had been assistant, Dr. Greene gave me that job as the principal of the ninth grade. And I stayed there for seven years. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: And then the new superintendent came in, Mr. (Kirbo?) sent me to -- gave me a job at the central office to replace Mr. Walker as administrative assistant. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: Then when Dr. Bradley came in, he made me assistant superintendent. So it was a whole lot of movement for a while. BAUSKE: And all that while you were going to school for big chunks of that, too. PYRON: I finally finished -- I started going to University of Georgia as assistant principal at the ninth grade. I started there, and I spent that year over at the fourth grade -- at the Fourth Ward, at the elementary school. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: And that -- and I was finishing up my doctorate when I was finally assigned to the ninth grade as principal. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. PYRON: So that was the quarter I told you I paid, but the work had been done. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: Yeah, I had to float that time. CUNNINGHAM: So you actually went to four schools? PYRON: Yeah. Mm-hmm. CUNNINGHAM: Fort Valley State, West Georgia, Georgia State and UGA? PYRON: Right. and also, when I was over in Germany -- CUNNINGHAM: Oh, (inaudible)? PYRON: When I was over in Germany (laughter) I went to the University of (inaudible). CUNNINGHAM: Okay. (inaudible) education, that’s for sure. PYRON: But so I could (inaudible). BAUSKE: Okay. (laughter) PYRON: It was a very short course. So I wanted to be able to at least count the money when I was out in Germany. BAUSKE: Yes. Oh yeah, oh yeah. PYRON: But it was interesting. CUNNINGHAM: So now looking back over your lifetime, what do you think the greatest impact that you had on your community? PYRON: Well, a lot of students, both from band and at the ninth grade and elementary, I still run into students that say good things. I run into students, and they generally greet me well. And I’m talking about black, white -- when I go, they’ll come up and they’ll give me a hug, or they’ll, you know. I remember back in band, I had some of the best years. “I remember what you said to me over the ninth grade.” “I know you got on me, I’m glad you gave us those whippings.” But towards the end of the ninth grade career, we had almost stopped spanking kids. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: And it had become a past way of dealing with children. But a lot of them, I’ve rarely run into one, even when I go to the fitness center I run into people that I’ve taught, and have good things to say. And you feel good about it. I was also chairman of the Salvation Army during that time, and there’s some people out in the community who remember those activities, and some of the things that we did away from the school system. But people have been gracious. And like I said, I get as many -- and I don’t care where I am -- as many white students as black students. And that means that I treated them fairly. And that was also important to me. That was always important. BAUSKE: I have another question. So here we are more than 50 years after the desegregation of schools. What are your thoughts on racial equality in schools now, as you look at it here in Griffin? PYRON: It’s, you know, from -- I don’t necessarily hear -- and Jewel may hear it more than me -- but I don’t necessarily hear racial fights. BAUSKE: Okay. PYRON: I don’t know, hear nasty things being done to one another based on race. I can’t say for sure something hasn’t gone. But I don’t -- I don’t hear it. You know, they have -- I go to the football games, and there’s been kids at the football games. I see black and white interaction, I see mixed couple. I see girlfriends and boyfriends, and they’re black and they’re white, and the cheerleaders, and so forth, tend to be fairly integrated. One school has more of one than the other one. That is a fact. Griffin High has more black folks -- WALKER-HARPS: Spalding High has more. PYRON: And Spalding High has more whites. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm. BAUSKE: Mm-hmm. WALKER-HARPS: Not because of race (inaudible), but because of living. The demographics of how it’s been. PYRON: The demographics are somewhat different at the two schools. And I don’t know -- you know, anytime that you’re trying to divide lines, where who goes where, you run into interesting complications sometimes. You really do. When we were -- back when we were working on what’s going to be Spartan High School, and what was going to be left at Griffin High School, crossing those -- figuring those lines are very complicated and very difficult. And you get compliant from this, and you get complaints from blacks, you get complaints from white -- excuse me -- it’s very, very difficult. Then you also had the moving patterns. People who can afford to move and want to be in a certain kind of area. We also have the extreme competition from the religious schools, because there are lots of people that want their child to have a religious background. I always remember Madalyn O’Hair that basically took religion out of the school, or prayers, so forth and so on. But a lot of, particularly -- some black students, but a lot of white students attending places like Eagles Landing in McDonough, Henry County, the first, what is it, Presbyter-- I mean -- WALKER-HARPS: First Assembly. PYRON: That First Assembly. A lot of -- and some black kids, because -- matter of fact, the principal of First Assembly is a black guy. WALKER-HARPS: He was, I don’t think he’s still there. PYRON: Or was, I mean. He was -- and but the religious aspect is still very important to a lot of folks. And if they can afford to send to the private school, the private schools -- basically a lot of private schools are doing very well, because there are principles that will be taught in religion that we have some restrictions in the regular school. I remember in ninth grade, trying to figure out how to let the clubs have the pastors, and so forth, coming over with our -- dealing with the restrictions that you got; has to be before this hour, and all kinds of things. And my point, viewpoint, is, religion has more of a positive effect than negative, when it was there. Because at least you knew straight down the line what’s supposed to be right, and what’s supposed to be wrong. Though we try to do character treatment and so forth and so on, it doesn’t have the impact, believe it or not, that religion did. But that’s another story. WALKER-HARPS: Were you a (inaudible)? Were you one of the -- PYRON: Oh, no. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, no. PYRON: The (inaudible) may have been -- was it mostly before my time? WALKER-HARPS: It might have been after your time, I don’t know, still ahead. PYRON: Because I finished Fairmount in ’63. WALKER-HARPS: Then it probably was after your time. PYRON: And Philip, he was at my school. He was an eighth grade teacher. WALKER-HARPS: (inaudible) to go with that. PYRON: I was trying to think when that came in. WALKER-HARPS: I don’t know. Jill Motley and Philip Head, I believe. PYRON: Okay. WALKER-HARPS: Philip Hood, not Philip Head. Philip Hood. PYRON: Uh-huh. WALKER-HARPS: But you would have been -- had you -- it must not have been your time, because -- PYRON: I’m thinking not. WALKER-HARPS: Or you would have been a part of it. And when you talk about the differences in religion, and what have you, that brought my attention back to Fairmount, because even though there may not have been ministers who did it, but with the white gloves and the other groups that you instructed, that readied your students to be the Jesuits, that had the same kind of values. PYRON: To be perfectly honest with you, when the schools were segregating, black folks could do things in the schools that others -- nobody questioned. Superintendent Cheeves, who was there -- and I’m trying -- who’s the lady that would come -- WALKER-HARPS: Ms. McCrary? PYRON: Ms. McCrary was kind of the representative from the white superintendent. CUNNINGHAM: Sure. PYRON: And my point about white, because blacks were not really up in central office. So she would come to the school. But the truth of the matter is, schools -- the black schools could have prayer, would have prayer, because they weren’t overseen like it is now. You do it now, somebody’s in trouble. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm. PYRON: But back then, the separation, and no watchdog, except for Ms. McCrary, you could do things that you just couldn’t do now. You could -- there were some teachers that could read a bible verse in the middle of a science class, to say -- as she was saying “goodbye” for the day. That couldn’t happen now. CUNNINGHAM: So standing on that point, so looking back now, was integration a positive thing for the black community? Or can you see some negatives that have come from integration? Of the schools? PYRON: In the sense that with integration, and also with finance. For instance, if I have the money and I want my child to be exposed to a religious part of the teaching, I could put him in a private school. If you don’t have the money, but you would like to have your child exposed to it, you don’t have a whole lot of choices. And some kids benefitted from the confines of religious teaching. And blacks were very -- and I think everybody knows -- blacks were very involved with religion during slavery. That was a lot of things -- that was a lot of it that kept you going. “And nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” -- all the songs had relationships to communication. The belief was we survived because of our belief in God. That’s a part of it. It’s embedded in a lot of ways, a lot of it’s old-school and slightly old-school. But it also had some controlling points of our kids. With the changes in -- with the changes in the structure and the fact that we have so many rules of things you cannot do anymore without breaking rules of government, and the parents of these kids are young, you got some kids, some children have -- you got five children in a single mama’s home, you got three babies’ daddies -- that is a family structure that is going to struggle. And males, black males, have almost disappeared from 60 percent of the homes. They may have children there, but they aren’t there. And even if they weren’t there, they had become irresponsible because they never were there. So you got a teaching that is not reaching those situations. And how do you get -- how to get back to that family structure that was so strong, believe it or not, during the worst of times -- CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm? PYRON: -- that you’re going from 70 percent or 80 percent two-parent homes, or somebody there, to 30 and 40 percent. That is a family structure that is deteriorating. That is why the gang guys can get a hold of the boys on the corner so easily, and sometimes the girls, too. And how are you going to break back into that structure is going to be a mammoth task, because you’re talking about changing a whole -- a culture that has changed from what it was sometime -- that was a time black parents and mothers were tight on their children and keeping them straight in line, education, educate -- Fairmount was education every day, education every day. It’s (inaudible). WALKER-HARPS: So you’re saying -- PYRON: How do you get that structure back? WALKER-HARPS: Are you saying that had separate but equal not been challenged in 1954, we would be better off? CUNNINGHAM: Hmm. WALKER-HARPS: That’s a hard question, I’m sure. I mean, it takes some thoughts. PYRON: That’s what -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, it takes some thoughts (inaudible). PYRON: That’s a -- that’s a question. But -- CUNNINGHAM: But definitely issues to explore. PYRON: It’s issues to explore. And it’s hard to come up with a good answer, because we really -- would separate but equal have survived, even separate and equal in the society we have now. You see, that’s why it’s hard to answer that question. WALKER-HARPS: But it never really existed. Only on paper. PYRON: It was never separate -- WALKER-HARPS: Separate -- PYRON: -- but equal. WALKER-HARPS: -- it was never equal, yeah. PYRON: No. Huh-uh. __: Well, it certainly sounds like within Fairmount High, there was a culture nurturing for mutual concern from the staff for all of the students. PYRON: Yeah. See, that was a four -- back in the day, that was a four-pronged attack. You had the parents agreeing with the schools, the community agreeing with the schools and the parents, and you had the church that was just as involved. You had four things working for that one kid. WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm? PYRON: And they were together on it! The problem is, it is no longer together. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm. PYRON: It’s no longer together. WALKER-HARPS: Amen. CUNNINGHAM: Well, do you have any words of wisdom that you’d like to share with me -- PYRON: It was just -- it was just -- CUNNINGHAM: -- for young people of today before we wrap up? PYRON: We used to have a thing at the -- it’s a (inaudible), and -- that we used to say. Boy, where is it? It’s here somewhere. Okay. We used to always say every morning that, “It’s better to be prepared for an opportunity than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.” That was one -- that one, we said it every morning. And it still holds water. You know, after being in education and the Army, you had everything, as 37 years counting our sick leaves, 37 years, 34 without -- you look back and you think about how great some things were that happened in those 37 years. But when I sometimes look at particularly the people who, black, white, Hispanic, and low-income, a different kind of culture has developed, and that’s sad to me. But it’s still going to be one tremendous challenge. I don’t know, as I look at -- I hope the dedication of teachers and principals, I hope that dedication is just as strong now as we felt it was when we were all out there. CUNNINGHAM: Mm-hmm. PYRON: I hope that it is. But when you see in Chicago, Southwest Chicago, and you see a football player in Atlanta just got killed by a guy who could care less, and this kid was head of (inaudible), four teenagers, four young people killed in the last week or so, it’s troubling. Chicago is almost out of control. Certain parts of it, I mean, I mean, just the South part. And I’ve been there. But you still have to believe that things can turn around, but it’s going to take a mammoth effort. And Lord knows, I hope it happens, you know. CUNNINGHAM: Well, before we wrap up today, is there anything else that you’d like to share with us that we haven’t covered? PYRON: I’m amazed that you all listened to all this stuff that I’ve said! (laughs) BAUSKE: It’s been wonderful. It’s been wonderful. CUNNINGHAM: Well, thank you so much, Mr. Pyron. PYRON: It was my pleasure. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you so much for coming in today. We appreciate your time. PYRON: I truly enjoyed talking to you. WALKER-HARPS: We truly enjoyed having you. You actually lived what you’re talking about, so that made it really a good interview, to me. It was real. PYRON: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, (inaudible). END OF AUDIO FILE
rbrl418gaa-020_pyron BE-ATRICE CUNNINGHAM: All right, well, good afternoon. Today is June 1st, 2018. My name is Be-Atrice Cunningham, and I
Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.
audio
purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Griffin, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
113 minutes
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-020/ohms
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Walter Pyron, June 1, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL418GAA-020
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Walter Pyron
Jewel Walker-Harps
Be-Atrice Cunningham
John Cruickshank
Ellen Bauske
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
African American teachers
African American veterans
Education
Religion
United States--Veterans
High school teachers
Georgia--Music
Description
An account of the resource
Walter Pyron was born in Griffin, Georgia and attended Anna Shockley Elementary during the years of segregation. Pyron additionally worked as the band director for Griffin High School before becoming the assistant principal of Futral Road Elementary School. In this interview, Pryon talks about growing up in Griffin, his administrative experiences in Griffin, Georgia’s school systems, and his experiences during the Vietnam War, as well as the impact of religion on the African American community.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
First Person Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The First Person Project was launched by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies in 2012 to record and preserve stories of life in post-twentieth century Georgia. Modeled roughly on StoryCorps, the First Person Project is smaller in scale but similar in concept--an oral history program designed to capture the stories of everyday Georgians. Interviewees are self-selecting. Pairs of friends or loved ones register to participate in the First Person Project on a designated day, and the conversation (up to forty minutes) is facilitated and recorded by Russell archivists. <br /><br />The First Person Project collects personal narratives and oral histories documenting life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Interviews are usually between two friends or family members and typically focus on personal stories such as relationships and family histories. Interviews also touch on larger historical and cultural themes such as racial identity, religion, environmental history, gay rights, the death penalty, and life in Athens and in Georgia.<br /><br />The First Person is divided into five series. <br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=I.+Georgia+Narratives">I. Georgia Narratives</a><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">II. Americus, Georgia </a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Americus, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Americus, Ga., at the Lee Council House in December 2013. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=III.+Hawkinsville,+Georgia">III. Hawkinsville, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Hawkinsville, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Hawkinsville, Ga., at the Hawkinsville Dispatch & News building in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library and the UGA Archway Partnership.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=IV.+Plains,+Georgia">IV. Plains, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Plains, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Plains, Ga., at the Plains Historic Inn in February 2014. Interviews were made possible through a partnership between the Russell Library, the UGA Archway Partnership, and the Americus Downtown Development Authority.</div>
<a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=V.+Beech+Haven,+Athens,+Georgia">V. Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia</a><br />
<div style="margin-left:2em;">Beech Haven, Athens, Georgia, interviews were recorded in Athens, Ga., through a partnership between the Russell Library and Dr. Cari Goetcheus, College of Environment and Design, UGA.
<div></div>
</div>
<br /><br /><a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=12&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&exhibit=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Location
The location of the interview
Americus, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
14 minutes
URL
<h3><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0024/audio-access" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Access Interview </a></span></h3>
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP-0024/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ROOT xmlns="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="https://www.weareavp.com/nunncenter/ohms/ohms.xsd"><record id="00106788" dt="2021-11-10"><version>5.4</version><date value="" format="yyyy-mm-dd"/><date_nonpreferred_format>2013-12-03</date_nonpreferred_format><cms_record_id></cms_record_id><title>Interview with William Harris, December 3, 2013</title><accession>RBRL324FPP-0024</accession><duration>14 minutes</duration><collection_id>RBRL324FPP</collection_id><collection_name>First Person Project</collection_name><series_id></series_id><series_name></series_name><repository>Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia</repository><funding></funding><repository_url /><interviewee>William Harris</interviewee><interviewer>Angie Singletary</interviewer><file_name></file_name><sync></sync><sync_alt></sync_alt><transcript_alt_lang></transcript_alt_lang><translate>0</translate><media_id></media_id><media_url></media_url><mediafile><host>Kaltura</host><avalon_target_domain></avalon_target_domain><host_account_id></host_account_id><host_player_id></host_player_id><host_clip_id></host_clip_id><clip_format>audio</clip_format></mediafile><kembed><iframe id="kaltura_player" src="https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player&entry_id=1_bunww6or&flashvars[streamerType]=auto&amp;flashvars[localizationCode]=en&amp;flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left&amp;flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical&amp;flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false&amp;flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder&amp;flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true&amp;flashvars[hotspots.plugin]=1&amp;flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true&amp;&wid=1_upzfhta9" width="640" height="360" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow="autoplay *; fullscreen *; encrypted-media *" sandbox="allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" frameborder="0" title="Kaltura Player"></iframe></kembed><language></language><user_notes></user_notes><index><point><time>25</time><title>Growing up / Education / Work Experience</title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>I was born in Tampa, Florida...</partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Harris talks about growing up in Americus, Georgia. He recalls the importance of athleticism and the Thomas L Bell Stadium for the community. Harris discusses his family and education experience. He shares that he went form Georgia Technical Institute, then joined the Navy, and the work he did following his military service.</synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Americus High School;G.W. Harris;Georgia Technical Institute;Glover Wholesale Co.;Orin Mitchell;Sumter Bank and Trust Company;Thomas L Bell Stadium;W. O. Eastland</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point><point><time>418</time><title>Changes to the Americus Community </title><title_alt></title_alt><partial_transcript>One of the things that I might... </partial_transcript><partial_transcript_alt></partial_transcript_alt><synopsis>Harris shares how the loss of the mobile home industry in Americus affected the city's economy. Harris explains the importance of technical schools in a community, and discusses the history of South Georgia Technical College. Harris reflects on the current condition of Americus and discusses the impact a tornado had on the community. </synopsis><synopsis_alt></synopsis_alt><keywords>Americus, Georgia;Glover Wholesale Company;South Georgia Technical College;Technical & Adult Edu Ga Department;tornado</keywords><keywords_alt></keywords_alt><subjects></subjects><subjects_alt></subjects_alt><gpspoints><gps></gps><gps_zoom></gps_zoom><gps_text></gps_text><gps_text_alt></gps_text_alt></gpspoints><hyperlinks><hyperlink></hyperlink><hyperlink_text></hyperlink_text><hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlink_text_alt></hyperlinks></point></index><type>oral history</type><description></description><rel /><transcript>No transcript.</transcript><transcript_alt></transcript_alt><rights>Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule.</rights><fmt>audio</fmt><usage></usage><userestrict>0</userestrict><xmllocation></xmllocation><xmlfilename></xmlfilename><collection_link>http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL324FPP/findingaid</collection_link><series_link></series_link></record></ROOT>
Subcollection/Series
Hidden element to divide collections up into sub-collections or series.
II. Americus, Georgia
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL324FPP-0024
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with William Harris, December 3, 2013
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
William Harris
Angie Singletary
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-12-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Veterans
United States. Navy--Sailors
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Americus, Georgia
Description
An account of the resource
William S. Harris was born in Tampa, Florida in the late 1930’s and was raised in Americus, Georgia from the age of five. He attended Americus High School and later South Georgia Technical College. He joined the Navy for two years after which he moved back to Americus, where he worked for Glover Wholesale Company and in the banking industry. In this interview, Harris talks about his life history, the history of Glover Wholesale Company, historic preservation, and changes to the Americus community. <br /><br/><br/>This interview is part of the <a href="https://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=58&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=II.+Americus,+Georgia">Americus, Georgia</a> series.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dean Rusk Oral History Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Officials and employees
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
The collection consists of 172 oral history interviews with Dean Rusk and his colleagues between 1984-1989. Includes audiotapes and transcriptions documenting Rusk's life from early childhood in the 1910's through his teaching career in the 1980's. The interviews contain information on Rusk's service as U.S. Under Secretary and Secretary of State during the administrations of Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson and his involvement in foreign relations including the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. The interviews also document his position as president of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=14&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard Geary Rusk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984-1989
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL214DROH
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Circa 1985 Rusk 7O, Dean Rusk autobiographical sketch, Part 1, circa 1985 RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O RBRL214DROH Dean Rusk Oral History Collection Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia oral history 1:|6(4)|14(10)|24(7)|33(4)|40(2)|47(17)|56(1)|66(3)|72(12)|80(8)|89(16)|101(2)|109(10)|117(12)|128(3)|136(7)|148(10)|159(12)|167(6)|178(8)|187(10)|203(8)|214(9)|222(9)|229(1)|238(5)|248(5)|259(2)|266(3)|273(1)|283(7)|290(16)|298(6)|307(10)|317(11)|327(13)|338(3)|347(5)|359(12)|370(7)|378(7)|390(4)|400(14)|409(9)|420(3)|431(7)|440(7)|448(11)|460(1)|468(16)|479(1)|489(11)|498(2)|505(14)|515(12)|523(7)|531(16)|540(11)|549(7)|557(7)|566(9)|576(9)|585(11)|592(14)|602(10)|610(3)|618(4)|623(1)|629(11)|635(7)|642(8)|649(6)|656(13)|664(6)|671(5)|680(5)|686(4)|692(4)|700(6)|709(5)|715(4)|724(1)|732(8)|739(4)|746(9)|754(16)|762(9)|770(1)|777(6)|784(3) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_y4wwpux8& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_k108whjf" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 21 Childhood in Cherokee County, GA I was born February 9, 1909 in Cherokee County, Georgia. Dean Rusk shares about his early childhood in Cherokee County. The topics he discusses include his ancestry, his home life, his diet, and the local area. Davidson College ; Justice of the Peace ; malnutrition ; Presbyterian ; Scotch-Irish 17 670 Attending grammar school in Atlanta In 1912, my father, realizing that this was a man-killing little farm and it was almost destroying my mother physically... Dean Rusk talks about his time at Lee Street School in Atlanta, GA. He discusses the quality and type of education he received there. Atlanta Public School System ; Carpenter's Geographic Readers ; Georgia Board of Education ; open air classrooms 17 990 Studying at Boys' High School After seventh grade, I went straight to high school. Dean Rusk discusses his experiences at Boys' High School. He shares about his favorite teacher, Preston Epps, and the quality of the school. Alciphronian Yearbook ; Atlanta Public School System ; Boston Latin School ; Greek literature ; Reserve Officers' Training Corp ; Rockefeller Foundation ; ROTC 17 1505 Preparation for Davidson College I had always dreamed about going to Davidson College. Dean Rusk talks about the two years he spent after high school saving money to attend Davidson College. He shares about his time in a law firm and working for the < ; i> ; Atlanta Journal< ; /i> ; newspaper. City Editor Harlee Branch, Sr. ; ROTC ; YMCA ; Young Men's Christian Association 17 1834 Obtaining the Rhodes Scholarship I knew when I first entered Davidson that I was going to try for a Rhodes scholarship... Dean Rusk speaks about his collegiate preparations for applying for the Rhodes Scholarship. He also discusses the application process. Cecil Rhodes ; Davidson College ; Former Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels ; North Carolina poll tax ; Professor Guy Vowles ; YMCA 17 2193 Time at Oxford University / Time in Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party Anyhow, I was accepted at St. John's College, Oxford, one of the smaller but one of the richer colleges there. Dean Rusk talks about his studies and leisure time at St. John's College, Oxford. Later, he discusses studying abroad in Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power. He shares about the changes to Germany and the university system. < ; i> ; Mein Kampf< ; /i> ; ; Hochshule fur Politik ; Nazism ; Professor Viktor Bruns ; The Lakes District, England ; The Modern Greats ; Treaty of Versailles ; University of Berlin 17 2731 Visit by Mohandas Gandhi / The King and Country debate One of the delights at Oxford was the fact that some of your professors would have open house every Sunday afternoon... Dean Rusk describes the time he heard Gandhi speak to a group of students at Oxford. Later, he talks about the King and Country debate he attended in the Oxford Union. Adolf Hilter ; C.E.M. Joad ; colonialism ; Indian Nationalists ; Oxford Lotus Club ; Oxford Movement ; pacifism ; Resolve that this House will not fight for King and Country ; St. John's College ; United States Army ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 3109 Professor at Mills College But when I was finishing up at Oxford in 1934, the United States was still in a very deep depression... Dean Rusk speaks about his time teaching at Mills College. He focuses on his admiration for Mills College President, Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, and recalls meeting his wife. Association of American University Woman ; Cecil Rhodes ; Republican Party ; Rhodes Trust ; United States Army Reserves 17 3579 Law school at Berkeley / Captain in the Army Reserves Part of that period, beginning about 1936, I began to study law at Berkeley. Dean Rusk shares about his experiences in law school at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1930's. Later, he discusses his transition to active duty as a captain in the Army Reserves. Boalt Hall ; Law Review ; U.S. Military ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 4108 Organizing a new section of G-2, the army intelligence organization Then in October 1941, I received orders to report to the War Department General Staff in Washington for a G-2... Dean Rusk talks about his move from California to Washington, D.C. to organize a new section of G-2 (the military intelligence staff in the U.S. Army) to cover Afghanistan, India, Burma, Malaya, Australia, New Zealand, and the British Pacific Islands. Murray's Tourist Handbook on India and Ceylon ; War Department ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 4442 Staff officer for General Joseph Stilwell After being in G-2 for over a year and a half, I was then sent to Commander General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Dean Rusk discusses going to India to serve as a staff officer for General Stilwell in the China-Burma-India Theater. He focuses on the command structure in this theater and their operations. Burma Road ; CBI ; Merill's Marauders ; Vinegar Joe Stillwell ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 5052 Chief of War Plans for General Joseph Stilwell My job as Chief of War Plans for General Stilwell was as much political as military. Dean Rusk speaks about his job as Chief of War Plans in the China-Burma-India Theater. He describes their mission and the barriers to success. Chiang Kai-shek ; communism ; General Clair Lee Chennault ; Indian National Movement ; World War 2 ; World War II ; WW2 ; WWII 17 DEAN RUSK: I was born February 9, 1909 in Cherokee County, Georgia. My great grandfather, David Rusk, was one of three brothers who came over from Northern Ireland, he was among the people we call the Scotch-Irish. He came over about the end of the 18th century and landed in Charleston and found his way over to the western part of South Carolina, in the Pendleton area--the John C. Calhoun kind of country. Then he made his way to north Georgia, the southern part of Cherokee County and staked out several hundred acres of ground there at a time when that was mostly Indian country--free for settlers to stake out. In a little family graveyard up in Cherokee County, I can see his grave and my great-grandmother' ; s grave and note on her tombstone that she was born in 1776, and I have often reflected upon the fact that only four of us have spanned the entire life of this country as an independent nation. My grandfather, James Edward Rusk, kept the original home place going ; he was a man of considerable substance. For example, he was the Justice of the Peace in that area and when neighbors had a problem, somebody' ; s cow trampled on someone else' ; s garden or something, they would simply meet with my grandfather under a tree somewhere and settle it. Very rarely did anything go to the county courthouse in that area because they tried to settle their problems locally. My grandfather had eleven children. My own father was next to the youngest son. He was the only one of those eleven children who went to college. He went to Davidson College in North Carolina, a Presbyterian liberal arts college, because he had in mind going into the Presbyterian ministry. After Davidson he went to the Louisville Theological Seminary and was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church. But he did not have a good run at his profession in the ministry because he had some trouble with his throat and had to leave it. He did some school teaching and then went back to Cherokee County and rented a forty acre plot of land from his sister, my Aunt Mary Roberts, and it was on that forty acre farm that I was born. I thought all my life that I had been delivered by a veterinarian because our next door neighbor was our uncle, Dr. Roberts, but I learned many years later that a doctor had come over from Woodstock, a town about eight miles away in the middle of a dark, stormy night to preside over my birth. I must confess that I can' ; t remember in much detail about those years in Cherokee County because we left there when I was less than four years old. I do remember the death of my grandmother and the fact that her sons, all together, sang at her funeral. I remember the men playing marbles in our yard, a marble game called Tennessee Nines. I remember the walk about four hundred yards from our house down to the old homeplace, down the road--the heavy forest on both sides and how scary it was to walk along there at night, when one didn' ; t know what would come out of the woods at you--all imagination. I remember going to the hill with a load of sugarcane to be ground up for sorghum syrup, but life on the farm there was very tough--red clay hills not very productive. There was a little bottom land along the river there where things could grow a little better. My father' ; s cash income in the course of a year on that little farm was perhaps a hundred dollars with a few bales, but we grew our own food and made our own guilts, things of that sort. The old house in which I was born was built by my father. It was one of the first houses in that part of Georgia to have glass windowpanes. Of course we had a well on the front porch and we had a privy about fifty yards behind the house. One thing I do remember is that my father and about a dozen neighbors joined together to put up a homemade telephone system connecting about twelve or fifteen farms in that area. It was one of those telephones where you turned a crank and each house had a particular ring: one long, two shorts or a long and a short. When the phone rang for anybody, whatever the signal, anybody else could pick up the phone and listen to what was being said and there were three long rings on the telephone system which was a signal for everybody to come to the phone. They used that in case of fire because you might need help from neighbors or if a mad dog came through and they had to follow that dog from farm to farm until somebody could kill it. I used to say they also used it if an agent of the federal government came into the area because we lived very much among ourselves and outsiders were not very welcome. As a matter of fact, anybody from as far away as across the river was looked upon pretty much as a foreigner. This little house had three rooms. Our diet was very inadequate. We lived on the pork that we got from slaughtering pigs after the first hard freeze. We very seldom had any beef because we only had two cows and we needed the milk. There were always some chickens--maybe twenty, thirty chickens--but we only ate chicken on very special occasions. We ate a lot of fatback and bacon. We did have some smoked ham. We bought our wheat flour but we grew our own corn for cornbread and ate a great deal of cornbread. The sorghum syrup was our principal sweetener--dessert, very little coffee. The calcium content of our food was very inadequate and most of us have had very poor teeth because of that. We knew that we were poor but if anybody else had called us poor we would have shot them. Of course, I was the third son so most of my clothes were hand-me-downs. My mother sewed most of our clothes. My father cobbled our shoes and cut our hair and we were as close to self-sufficiency as you could be on a forty acre farm and with limited supplies of cash. I have never known how much rent my father had to pay my aunt for that farm, but it could not have been very much. My two older brothers and my older sister Margaret attended a typical one room schoolhouse. In those days they had seven grades in one room and the only qualification for the teacher was that he or she be a graduate of that particular school. I did not attend that school because I wasn' ; t old enough before we moved to Atlanta. I got something of a feel for life in Cherokee County as well as down in Rockdale County where my mother grew up because after we moved to Atlanta in 1912, we kids would go back to the country during the summer vacation. I spent a lot of time with kinfolk on the farms until I was fourteen or fifteen years old and so I had a good chance later on to get a real sense as to what life had been like on the farm. In 1912, my father, realizing that this was a man-killing little farm and it was almost destroying my mother physically, took a job at the post office in Atlanta as a mail carrier and we moved to Atlanta in 1912. Atlanta was maybe seventy-five thousand to eighty thousand by that time, it was sort of a railroad center. We first lived in a little house on Fifth Street which has long since been overrun by Georgia Tech and although it was in the center of Atlanta, it still had an outdoor privy. That is a matter of some importance because one of the things I remember about that place was both my brother Roger and my brother Parks had typhoid fever while we were living there. But we soon moved out to West End and Whitehall Street along the Central of Georgia railroad which ran from Atlanta down to Macon. I entered school there--Lee Street School. I was very fortunate in being able to attend the Lee Street School because it was then the normal training school for the Atlanta School System. That meant that we had only very select teachers for our regular classroom teachers, and we had fifteen or twenty of the teacher candidates around to help out with projects and pageants and teacher' ; s aides and things of that sort. Looking back on it, I feel that I got a very good start in grammar school. My mother had been a schoolteacher briefly. With two older brothers and an older sister, I learned to read and write and do arithmetic before I was of school age so I took a test to see whether I would skip the first grade and go into the second grade. As a result of that, I started off going to school in the second grade. The teacher I became acquainted with was Miss Ethel Massingale, my second grade teacher, and she and I corresponded all of her life until she died in her eighties, she was not married. But we had excellent teachers, we learned the basic things about reading, spelling, arithmetic and things of that sort--it was a pretty well-disciplined school. One thing I look back upon with some satisfaction was that each year we would study a different part of the world, using what they called Carpenter' ; s [Geographic] Readers, they were little geography books. One year we would use the Reader on Latin America, another year Africa, another year on Asia, another year on Europe and all of our projects and pageants and things like that were built around the area of the world that we were studying at that time. So one got a feeling even at that early age as to what the world was about, people in other parts of the world. We had seven years of grammar school there. The first three years were in an outdoor school, which was very unusual then. One square building, split down the middle in two directions with walls, but the outside walls were wide open, and we attended school in those classes right through the winter. There were canvas curtains we could raise in case of rain but when it got cold in the winter we had thick woolen bags in which we would tie ourselves. In really cold weather, we would heat bricks at home and bring them to school and put them in the bottom of the bag and about every hour and a half or so we would pause and the teacher would serve hot cocoa. I remember when I was in the fourth grade going down to the city' ; s Board of Education to testify in favor of continuing that open air school, but the Atlanta school system did not continue it. I suspect because it was pretty hard on the teachers to teach under those conditions but I never had colds or anything else. I have never been as healthy as I was going to that open air school. After the seventh grade I went straight to high school, we didn' ; t have junior high school in those days. Again I was very fortunate because in the Atlanta school system in those days they had two high schools, Boys' ; High School and Girls' ; High School whose primary purpose was to prepare young people for college. Then they had Commercial High and Tech High for those whose primary interest was not in going on to college. So Boys' ; High School in those days was very much like the Boston Latin School, a rigorous program with college preparatory work with emphasis on English, mathematics, Latin, Greek, and science. I greatly benefitted from the rather rigorous discipline that they had there in that high school. Years later they made the high schools in Atlanta all purpose high schools where every high school tried to do everything. Maybe it is a sign of my age but I felt that maybe they slipped back a bit by losing some of the quality they had in the old Boys' ; High School. The principal was Mr. [Herbert] H.O. Smith, a Harvard man who had very high standards and was a rigorous disciplinarian where learning was concerned. He would throw quite a tantrum if he came across shoddy work or anything of that sort. About 90% of us went on to college--it was a public high school. The most striking thing about this experience, as I look back over the years, was the greatest single teacher I ever had in my life, my high school teacher of Greek, named Preston Epps. He had classes of eighteen or so perfectly normal teenage boys but he would just bring us alive by going into the great questions and great ideas raised by the Greeks ; Plato, Aristotle and the great works that the Greeks produced. We worked very hard at it and were very enthusiastic about those Greek studies because of the inspirational quality of Preston Epps' ; teaching. RICHARD RUSK: Would his wife be privy to his thoughts about you back then? DEAN RUSK: Probably, but she is now his second wife and the wife that he had at the time he was teaching Boys' ; High has long since died. But Miriam Epps and I are good friends and she undoubtedly has heard him talk a good deal about those days. After he finished his Ph.D. at Chicago, Preston Epps went on to become professor of classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and became one of the Kenan professors up there which is one of the distinguished professorships at the University and later became a professor emeritus. He and I, again, corresponded until his death in 1982 at the age of 94. He was a most remarkable man. One of the real satisfactions that I had was later on when I, at the Rockefeller Foundation, was able to find a genuine job that he could do for us on a visit to Greece and that was his first opportunity to visit Greece and he never forgot that nor did I. On Boys' ; High School you can check some of these things through the yearbook called the Alciphronian. RICHARD RUSK: How was it determined who got to go to Boys' ; High School? DEAN RUSK: You made your own choice, you applied. I don' ; t know, quite frankly, whether they screened out applicants for Boys' ; High School. There were neighborhood high schools but Boys' ; High School was not, it was a city-wide school. Boys' ; High School originally, when I first started there, was a big, old, red brick building on Gilmore Street just across the street from the city auditorium. It was inadequate, drafty. I have developed over the years some real skepticism about whether the quality of teaching has much to do with the luxury of the surroundings in which the teaching takes place. RICHARD RUSK: Was it a boarding school? DEAN RUSK: No. RICHARD RUSK: Did your dad take special efforts to get you in? DEAN RUSK: No, I just applied to Boys' ; High from Lee Street School and whether anything went on behind the scenes to certify me I just don' ; t know. I had no problem getting in. Boys' ; High was about four miles from home and a friend of mine from West End and I went to school together every day, we would usually stand down at the corner and thumb a ride. His name was James Jacobs who worked for many years with the Southern Bell Telephone Company. I remember one old gentleman, who drove an old-fashioned Chevrolet touring car, would pick us up most days. But there were times when we walked in and walked home. Boys' ; High began ROTC [Reserve Officers' ; Training Corp] but began its classes at seven-thirty in the morning before the regular school started and so that meant that we got up and started going pretty early in the day to get there in time. I valued the ROTC training and enjoyed it. My final year there I was cadet commander of the battalion. We were instructed by a remarkable noncommissioned army officer named Sergeant Short, who was a good disciplinarian and handled the situation very well. I was active in school affairs. I was on the staff of the school newspaper. I think I was editor of the yearbook, the Alciphronian, and did not limit my interest just to the classes and school books. I went out for basketball but got cut off the squad the first day because I wasn' ; t any good but made a lot of friends there at Boys' ; High School who have been with me all of my life. Now that I am back in Georgia I see a good many of those fellows and its means a good deal to me ; people like Harvey Hill, Harlee Branch [Jr.], Dr. Paul McGinty. There are others whose names I could provide you although many of them are no longer alive. Then, I had always dreamed about going to Davidson College. My father had been in the class of 1894 there and he had told us a good deal about Davidson, but the question was how I was going to get there from a financial point of view. I stayed out of school for two years between high school and college working in a little law office with a young lawyer named Augustus [M.] Roan who later became a judge in Atlanta. The idea was that I would work and save up enough to go to college, but it didn' ; t work out very well because I didn' ; t make much more than it took to live on so I didn' ; t really bank any money to use to go to college, but that was a useful two years. Among other things I spent a lot of time down at the YMCA [Young Men' ; s Christian Association] learning to play basketball and at least got good enough to make the Davidson team when I finally got there but that is another story. One thing that turned out to be a lucky break was that in my senior year in high school, I was asked to be the school page editor for the Atlanta Journal. Each Sunday the Journal would run a full page of letters from the different elementary schools from around the city, each one of those schools would have a kind of correspondent and they would write in letters. It would be my job to edit those letters and paste them together to make up a school page. That paid $40 a month and that was very welcome money in those days, but it brought me in touch with one of the great figures in Atlanta journalism, Harlee Branch, Sr., who was the city editor of the Atlanta Journal. My little desk was right under the rail behind which he sat. And then there were great sports writers like O.B. Keeler and Morgan Blake and others and I found that a very stimulating experience. Well, after two years in this lay office, I decided that I had better head for college if I were ever going to get there and so I set out for Davidson. My brother Parks drove me up there and I had about $50 in my pocket but because my father had been for a time a Presbyterian minister, I was given a scholarship, a modest amount. Then I was lucky enough to find jobs with which I could work my way through Davidson. For example, every four years the local bank in town named an entering freshman to become bookkeeper and assistant teller in a little bank in Davidson. It just happened that the job came open when I got there. I was lucky enough to get that job and it helped a good deal with the costs. I waited on tables at the boarding house and my senior year I was one of the managers of the student store, I had to just piece things together to keep things going. I entered Davidson in 1927 and graduated in 1931. Davidson was then and is now a good solid liberal arts college--very good in pre-professional training and undergraduate preparation for graduate studies and elsewhere. It had a good academic reputation, good faculty ; it is even much more strong today than it was then. I found the Davidson College experience pretty hectic because I had a full day with the combination of classes and studies and basketball and other things and so I had to run from one appointment to another almost all the time. I continued ROTC at Davidson which I enjoyed every much under the direction of Colonel William R. Scott, one of the finest army officers I have ever known in my life. I used to visit with him until his death in the late 1960s, a very fine man. I knew when I first entered Davidson that I was going to try for a Rhodes scholarship because that was about the only way I saw that I could take any graduate studies or go beyond the B. A. [Bachelor of Arts] degree. And so partly because of that and partly because things just happened, I took a very active part in student affairs there at Davidson. My freshman year I was president of the freshman class, I was very active in the YMCA work, active on their yearbook, the Quips and Cranks, was an active member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, but still I knew that I had to keep my academic work in good shape and so I boned up pretty hard. At Davidson I made, of course, a great many friends that have been friends throughout my life although I have not seen as many of them as I should like to. I went to my 50th reunion in 1981 and there were about seventy of us there which was quite a lot for a 50th class reunion that was about 70% of the class. I took the regular liberal arts program with majors in effect in political science and history and remember with particular appreciation a member of the faculty named Archibald Currie, who had been law trained rather than through the Ph.D. track and he taught American government, principle of law and international law and things of that sort and I always enjoyed that work with him. But the person most responsible for my getting a [Cecil John] Rhodes scholarship was Professor Guy Vowles, professor of German at Davidson ; he himself had been a Rhodes Scholar many years earlier and he took the initiative and urged me to apply for a Rhodes scholarship and indeed I think he was on the State Committee of Selection. I applied for the Rhodes from North Carolina because you could apply either from your own home state or from the state in which you went to college. So I applied to the North Carolina committee and was lucky enough to get it. There were two committees to go through for a Rhodes scholarship because when Cecil Rhodes wrote his will back in 1903 or 1904 he provided under his will a Rhodes scholarship to each state in the American union, thinking that there were thirteen states. Well, actually there was not enough money in the will to provide one for each one of the forty eight states, so they went into court and got the will amended to provide thirty-two Rhodes scholarships from the United States as a whole so as a result each state had its competition, its committees of selection, then those go to a regional committee so that they would allocate by regions the number that would be required for thirty-two from the United States as a whole. And so I went off to Oxford in October 1931. In talking with young people these days about their plans for the future, I have been impressed with the role which accident, happenstance, luck played in my own life. One example of that came up in connection with the Rhodes scholarship. The chairman of the North Carolina committee was Josephus Daniels who had been Woodrow Wilson' ; s Secretary of the Navy. When I was before the Committee he looked over my papers and said, " ; Mr. Rusk, I see in your papers here that you live up in Georgia. Why should we give a North Carolina appointment to a Georgian?" ; And I said, " ; Well, Mr. Chairman, I have been living in North Carolina for four years, I have spent not only the school year here but the summers here ; I worked in a bank in Greensboro in the summertime, I have paid poll tax in North Carolina." ; " ; Oh," ; he said, " ; you paid poll tax. That' ; s alright." ; Now paying poll tax was a complete accident because the teller of the little bank in Davidson, a marvelous man named Thompson, was also the town treasurer and he was the fellow who collected poll tax. And just for fun or sentiment, or whatever it was, I paid him a dollar poll tax each year. I am quite convinced that if I had not paid that poll tax, I would not have been chosen as a Rhodes Scholar from North Carolina. Anyhow, I was accepted at St. John' ; s College, Oxford, one of the smaller but one of the richer colleges there. It had vast holdings in North Oxford real estate and things like that. I started out to read for the degree in philosophy, politics and economics, a degree called the Modern Greats by the people at Oxford. I had some fine tutors there in my own College, and of course, the lectures at Oxford are university-wide lectures and you can attend such of them as you see fit. The University publishes a lecture program for each term and you look through it and decide with your tutor which ones you think you would be interested in and would be helpful to you. The only compulsory academic appointment which I had at Oxford was my weekly session with my tutor. Each week I would be expected to write a paper on a topic that my tutor and I had agreed on ahead of time and I would bring in that paper and he would go over it with me and would criticize it and go on from there. And so, that continuous writing experience, I think, proved very valuable to me. One of the most important things about Oxford, as far as I was concerned, was that it was the first time I had a chance to experience any of the leisure that goes along with learning. There was no such thing as working your way through Oxford so I had a good deal of time on my hands for bull sessions with my own fellow students. Of course, every afternoon everyone was expected to take part in sports of some sort. I played lacrosse at the University and tennis, but the idea at Oxford in those days was that you took full advantage of what one thinks of as " ; Oxford life." ; The serious cramming for your exams you did during your vacations. The three terms which make up the Oxford year altogether lasts about six months so you have about six month' ; s vacation each year. The typical habit was to load up a suitcase full of books and go off somewhere and do some really hard studying during your vacation period. I spent one vacation, I remember, on the little island of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands off the French coast, all by myself, living with a family but no other young people around. I spent another vacation for a period up in the lake district of northern England in the Wordsworth country on a reading party where certainly every morning was put into hard academic work and every afternoon we went out hiking, things like that. Then I began to go to Germany during my Oxford vacations, and I was in Germany when [Adolf] Hitler seized power and I brought back some very strong impressions of what had happened in those eventful years in Germany. I was there, for example, when the Nazi storm troopers took the streets and public platforms away from the democratic parties of Germany. My first year in Germany was 1933. I went to Germany in the first instance to study international law at the Hochschule fur Politik under Professor [Viktor] Bruns. But soon after I enrolled there and began seminars with him, the Nazis took over this Hochschule fur Politik and turned it into a leadership school for the Nazi party. I then moved across the street to the University of Berlin. But the impact of the Nazis on the education system became apparent very early indeed. For example, in this seminar with Professor Bruns, we began discussing on the first day what kinds of things we ought to cover in the seminar. One of the Nazi students stood up and said, " ; There is nothing to study but the illegality of the Treaty of Versailles." ; He demanded that we simply concentrate on that subject. Well, that didn' ; t promise to be a very productive session in international law so I was rather glad that I was forced to move across the street to the University of Berlin where there were some remnants of the educational system, although the Nazis had begun to make inroads there. So I went back to Germany and spent some time in Hannover learning German and became relatively fluent. I went to Hamburg to study economics ; they were very strong in economics at the big trading center, but most of my studies were there in Berlin itself. It was very distressing to see what the Nazis were in the process of doing. One of the tragedies of the Nazi experience was that many of my own age German students supported Adolf Hitler for what we would call idealistic reasons. They were interested in rebuilding the public morale of Germany following the terrible experiences of inflation and all the rest of it under the Weimar Republic. It was not until later that they realized the extent to which their idealistic views had been betrayed by this man Hitler. They just didn' ; t believe what he had written and Mein Kampf didn' ; t think he was serious about it and let themselves become trapped. When I was in Berlin, I lived with a German family out in Neubabelsberg, near Potsdam, and there was a seventeen-year old boy in that family. Well, he was crazy about motorbikes and he was offered a position in the SS [Schutzstaffel] Motorbike Brigade and he joined ; not because he had any particular ideological views that would turn him in that direction but because he liked motorbikes. Well, he was in the SS throughout the war, served on the eastern front in Germany and all that. As a matter of fact, I took leave for one term at Oxford in order to continue my studies in Germany because so much was happening there and came on back to Oxford for my final term and took my final exams in philosophy, politics and economics. The final exam there produces a B.A. degree. It is a B.A. which is somewhat further along in the academic world than the ordinary American B.A. because in the English school system their preparatory school, their public schools, carry work up through what we would call junior college and so the so-called undergraduate degree at Oxford is more or less the equivalent of a M.A. degree in an American situation. END OF SIDE 1 BEGINNING OF SIDE 2 DEAN RUSK: One of the delights at Oxford was the fact that some of your professors would have open house every Sunday afternoon and some of the most important people in Europe would drop by for a Sunday afternoon tea with the professor and undergraduates. [Mohandas] Gandhi visited Oxford while I was there. He had come to London for one of the so-called Round Table conferences between the Indian Nationalists and British government and he came up to spend the weekend with the Master of Balliol, bringing along with him two goats to provide him with his goat' ; s milk. He agreed to spend an evening with an organization of Indian students at Oxford called, I believe, the Lotus Club. He agreed that each Indian student could bring a non-Indian student with him to this meeting. A friend of mine at St. John' ; s College who was Indian asked me to go with him. It was a very dramatic evening ; a crowded room with about two hundred students in it and Mr. Gandhi sitting on a table up in front of the room in his loin cloth, cross-legged, and he simply spent the evening talking with us, answering questions. I remember one thing in particular that he said, he said, " ; They will think of me in spiritual terms, that is because of my way of life, the things I say, the way I dress, but they will forget that I have discovered the secret of power in India." ; His voice became rather harsh at this point, he said, " ; We Indians cannot return British fire, rifle for rifle, canon for canon, because we simply don' ; t have such weapons, but we can drive them out of India by simply doing nothing because they can' ; t stay here without us." ; He said, " ; If we do that, some of us may die, others of us may go hungry, but the British will have to leave." ; And then in rather harsh terms he said, " ; That is raw power." ; And I have never forgotten about that meeting that evening with Mohandas Gandhi. Another evening I have never forgotten was a debate we had in the Oxford Union that famous Oxford undergraduate debating society sometimes referred to as " ; the training ground for prime ministers." ; The Oxford Union held a debate every week on some stated topic. One evening I was there at the Oxford Union when the motion before the House was " ; Resolve that this House will not fight for King and Country." ; The man who moved the motion from the pacifist side was the philosopher C.E.M. [Cyril Edwin Mitchinson] Joad. He was brilliant, witty, articulate, and his patriotic opposition was pretty inadequate so C.E.M. Joad carried the day and the Oxford Union voted with a very substantial vote that " ; This House will not fight for King and Country." ; Since I was an American and it wasn' ; t my King and Country and also I was a reserve officer in the United States Army, I did not vote on that motion. I thought it was up to me to abstain. But that vote in the Oxford Union that night created quite a sensation and gave rise to a pacifist movement called the Oxford Movement. Adolf Hitler was later to refer to that as one of the signs that Britain would not fight and helped to encourage him to pursue his course of aggression with which we are all familiar. But there was a follow-up on that debate that interested me. Just a very few years after the outbreak of war, C.E.M. Joad himself and Bertrand Russell, Maude Roydon, George Lansbury, joined in a joint statement that was circulated widely by the British Minister of Information, which in effect said to these same young people, " ; Sorry chaps, this fellow Hitler is different, get out there and fight." ; All without the arms, without the training, without the acts of prevention which they themselves had done so much to block. In the United States, we had similar people, among them Norman [Mattoon] Thomas, who wrote a very pained little book explaining to my generation of students why we should nevertheless fight in World War II despite all the things which he had said prior to World War II. My generation of students was led down the garden path into the catastrophe of a World War II which could have been prevented. I will get into that as we go along. But we nevertheless did what was expected of us, knowing that it was a war that did not have to happen if people had been wise enough or strong enough at the proper time. When I was finishing up at Oxford in 1934, the United States was still in a very deep depression and I had no particular ideas about a job so I wrote a note to President Frank Aydelotte of Swarthmore College who was the American secretary to the Rhodes trust and told him that if he heard of any job opportunities that came across his desk, I would be interested in hearing from him. So one day at Oxford I got a cable asking if I would accept a position as assistant professor of government at Mills College, at a salary of $2,000 a year. I cabled back saying yes. Then I went around Oxford trying to find some Rhodes scholars from California to tell me where and what Mills College was. I had never heard of the place. The cable was sent by Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, who was then president of Mills College and she, perhaps as a matter of policy, perhaps out of financial stringency, had the practice of inviting some fresh Rhodes scholars to the faculty, perhaps knowing that the chances were that in the long run she wouldn' ; t be able to keep them on the faculty. But one of the faculty members, a former Rhodes scholar named Buck, had been invited to spend a visiting year at Stanford and so there was a vacancy. She undoubtedly got hold of Dr. Aydelotte and he must have given her my name. But anyhow, I went to Mills College in the fall of 1934 where I started out as a young professor of government and international relations. I was at Mills College until I was called to active duty in the army in December 1940, in preparation for building up our armed forces because of the war that was then going on. Those were very interesting and happy days at Mills College. Among other things, I met your mother there. She was in a couple of my classes my first year. She had signed up to have those classes with Professor Buck, who was not going to be there and some stranger named Rusk was going to teach those classes, she apparently cried when she heard the news. In the summer of 1934 she had gone to Japan as part of a Japanese-American student exchange group and she was actively interested in international matters. So that was how I became acquainted with her. As a matter of fact, in her second year I drove her down to a conference at Riverside, California, put on by the president of the University of Southern California, Dr. Rufus B. Kleinschmitt. This was a Riverside conference on World Affairs that was held in December of each year and it was the usual kind of thing--a series of speeches and discussion groups--and since your mother was a student who was interested in international affairs, I invited her to drive down there with me and we did and that soon began to bloom into a more that ordinary friendship, so before long we were getting pretty close to each other. It was not easy for a young professor to court a student in a women' ; s college in the 1930s, but we would get up at five o' ; clock in the morning and drive out in the countryside and have breakfast over a boy scout frying pan and things like that and get her back before everyone started getting up. We would sort of get away for dinner or something like that where we were not likely to run into Mills people. It was an interesting college in those days. Aurelia Reinhardt herself was an extraordinary woman. She was large physically, commanding voice, very high intelligence ; she was very active both in local and national affairs, Republican National Committeewoman from California, close friend of Herbert Hoover and his Secretary of the Interior, Ray Lyman Wilbur, who had been president of Stanford ; she was a woman of real quality and determination. She held Mills College together through the depths of the Depression simply by determination, hairpins and baling wire. She was just determined to see it through, just made it happen. She was very active in the Association of American University Women, very active in her own church ; she was national head of her church one year. She had a great influence not only on campus but in the entire Bay area community. I liked working for her ; she was a good college president. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether Mills could have survived those rigorous years of the Depression without the special qualities of Aurelia Reinhardt. There is a good biography on her which you can read and catch up on that part of it. Of course, your mother and I have many friends from the Mills days both on the faculty and among alumni of many classes, particularly among the classes from about 1933 to about 1945. We since have been very active in the Mills Club of New York, Mills Club of Washington, and lately we have been meeting with the Mills College group down in Georgia. Part of that period, beginning about 1936, I began to study law at Berkeley. I was shooting in the long run to become a university professor in international law. I was thinking primarily of political science departments, but as I looked around the field and looked around political scientists, I found that almost none of them had law training ; they had all come through the Ph.D. track. I felt that since lawyers and political scientists talk about the same institutions, use many of the same words, that there would be some point in going to law rather than the Ph. D. track in preparation for teaching international law, perhaps in a political science department. So I began to attend the University of California Law School at Berkeley, at Boalt Hall as it is called. The Law School at Berkeley was one of the top three or four law schools in the entire country, it was then and still is, with a very fine faculty, able student body, a fine library ; it was one of the best. It was about ten miles from the Mills campus and there were times when I had to make a twenty minute transfer from a class that I was teaching at Mills to a class at Berkeley. And I had to scurry pretty fast across the tortuous winding roads between Mills and the Berkeley campus, usually my principal problem was to find a place to park once I got over to Berkeley. I took about a two-thirds or three-fourths program at law school, knowing that it would take me more than the three years to finish up because I was teaching full-time at Mills while I was studying law. Of course, that meant a pretty heavy load, reading and studying both for my classes at Mills and for my law classes, but I managed. As a matter of fact, I was invited to be on the board of the Law Review at the Berkeley Law School, but I was simply too pressed to be able to put in the articles that would have qualified me for full membership on the Law Review. During all that period, I was a reserve officer in the U.S. Army. In those days, Congressional appropriations were so small that we had a minimum of active training, an occasional two week camp during the summer, but most of the reserve training was done by correspondence work, map problems that were sent out by the area headquarters over at the Presidio, San Francisco. So doing those map problems to keep my reserve commission alive and moving forward was on top of whatever I had to do as a professor at Mills and as a student of law at Berkeley. I was told in late 1939, early 1940 that the prospect was that I would be called to active duty as a reserve officer and so I did not continue my law work in the fall of 1940. Indeed, I was called to active duty as a captain in the Army Reserves to take command of the A-Company of the 30th Infantry which was then stationed at the Presidio, San Francisco. I had never had active command of regular troops before and I suppose I was rather green, but I had been very active both in high school and in college ROTC, eight years of it, and had been the cadet commander both in high school and in college. The 30th Infantry was a part of the Third Division, made up of the Seventh, Fifteenth and Thirtieth Infantry Regiments. But they were distributed up and down the West Coast. The Division had not been mobilized as a division for a very long time, but it was stated that the Third Division on the West Coast and the First Division were the only two divisions in our army that rated " ; ready for combat," ; but that was ridiculous. When I took command of Company A of the 30th Infantry, we had a little over one hundred men in the Company instead of two hundred and twenty-five called for by the Tables of Organization. A number of those men were holdovers from World War I and obviously too old for active field duty as infantrymen. We did not have our full complement of machine guns ; we had no mortars even though mortars were simple metal tubes ; we were very limited in ammunition for purposes of training. At one period, I remember, we were rationed to ten rounds per man per season for training on the range to teach people how to shoot. That may have been because we had been moving about everything we could scrap up to Britain in connection with their war effort. But we did maneuver in Marin County then eventually down at Fort Roberts lower down in California. Then the Third Division was pulled together up in the state of Washington at Fort Lewis. In the summer of 1941, I was transferred from Company A to become assistant G-3 of the Third Division, assistant operations officer. G-3 is the tactical and operations unit of the General Staff. We were heavily involved in maneuvers both on the Olympic Peninsula across the Puget Sound from Seattle and in other training exercises with far less equipment than would be normal if we had any idea of going to combat. Then in October 1941, I received orders to report to the War Department General Staff in Washington for a G-2, G-2 being the intelligence organization of the army. My division commander protested this transfer ; I expressed my own lack of desire to take it, but the War Department persisted ; your mother and I were off to Washington. It turned out that my assignment there was to organize a new section of G-2 to gather information about British areas in Asia and the Pacific. This new section which was committed to me was to cover Afghanistan, the Indian subcontinent, Burma, Malaya, Australia, New Zealand and the British Pacific Islands, a vast area with which I had had very little contact. When I arrived I tried to find out why it was that I was assigned to that job despite the objections of my division commander, and I was told that a large stack of cards on individual officers were run through a sorting machine and my card fell out for that particular job because I spent three years in England. When I arrived I asked to see the files of information which we already had on that vast part of the world and a dear old lady, almost at the point of retirement, Mrs. North, took me over to a set of file cabinets and pulled out one drawer marked British Asia. There we found one copy of Murray' ; s Tourist Handbook on India and Ceylon ; it had been stamped confidential because it was the only copy in town and that was the only way to keep track of it and be sure that no one else ran off with it ; there was one 1925 military attached report from London on the British army in India and about a half a drawer full of clippings from the New York Times which Mrs. North had been clipping between World War I and II on that part of the world and that was it. It is hard for people to realize how naked we were in terms of information intelligence about so many parts of the world at the beginning of World War II. However, I passed my first test with flying colors. About my second or third day there on the job I got a telephone call from a full colonel in the War Plans Division of the General Staff who said " ; Rusk, I forget, is Indochina in South China or in North China?" ; I was able to explain to him where Indochina was. It is a bureaucratic fact that when someone finds themselves on a desk with a particular tag on it, that person overnight becomes the expert on that particular job and so I was the War Department' ; s expert on that vast part of the world almost from the first day, it is laughable of course but that is the way it happened. We began to build up that section and accumulate information and establish contact with people who had experience in those countries and gradually began to sort things out. After being in G-2 for over a year and a half, I was then sent to Commander General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I went out there for a ninety day crash course put on especially for majors and lieutenants ; I had by then been promoted to major. As a result of that, I was assigned, in effect, to a pool of officers who were being prepared for General Staff functions overseas. In the spring of 1943 I was assigned to become the staff officer for General Joseph [Warren] Stilwell, " ; Vinegar" ; Joe Stilwell, in the China-Burma-India Theater. I prepared myself to go, put Mother and David on the train for California where she was to stay while I was overseas during the war ; she went to Mills and stayed with some friends for a bit and then got a little house up on Underwood Drive on the campus itself. I think we paid something like $20.00 a month rent on that little house during the war. General Stilwell happened to be coming to Washington for consultation and so it was arranged that I would fly to India with him. I think that was in early June 1943. We flew to India in one of the new DC-4 aircraft which then appeared to be a magnificent plane. I thought at the time that it was the plane to end all planes--four motored, had long distance capability, had a good record of reliability. We went first to London where General Stilwell had consultations with British military authorities and then flew from London to North Africa, crossed North Africa, which had been, by then, recaptured by the Allies, on to India. I was put in the Operations Section of General Stilwell' ; s staff at the headquarters in New Delhi and soon became the Chief of War Plans for General Stilwell' ; s headquarters, he had another headquarters up in Assam in northeastern India where preparations were being made for a reentry into Burma, and still another headquarters in China. The command structure out there was very complex indeed because the British Chiefs of Staff were the executive agents for the U.S. and British Combined Chiefs of Staff for Burma and India, whereas Chiang Kai-shek was the Supreme Commander for the China theater, General Stilwell was, in theory, under the command of Lord Louis [Francis Albert Victor Nicholas] Mountbatten in the Southeast Asia command for India and Burma, but was also Chief of Staff to Chiang Kai-shek in the China theater. So command arrangements were rather complicated, and we had to work more or less on the basis of cooperation rather than direct command. The China-Burma-India theater was the lowest priority in the war as far as the general Allied strategy was concerned. First priority was of course the war against Hitler in Europe ; second priority was given to the operations in the Pacific under General [Douglas] MacArthur and Admiral [Chester William] Nimitz and the China-Burma-India theater was more or less at the bottom of the list. That had an influence on the manpower we were allocated, supplies, the equipment in terms of aircraft and things of that sort that might be needed so we had to make do with minimum resources. General Stilwell, for example, kept pressing for at least two American infantry divisions, but he never got them. He finally got one reinforcement regiment called " ; Merrill' ; s Marauders" ; which were used in operations in north Burma but there were never any major American ground forces involved in that area. We did make a major commitment toward building the Burma Road for a reentry into China. We did not know at that time how the war would develop with the Japanese and we could see the possibility that even if the Japanese were defeated in the Pacific and in their main islands that the large Japanese forces on the mainland of China would continue to fight. In any event, it was important to keep the Chinese in the war somehow in order to pin down, use up those Japanese forces which might otherwise be thrown in to reinforce those who were opposing MacArthur and Nimitz. So we needed this backdoor entry into China for the purpose of mining supplies and we took on the arduous task of opening up a road from northeastern India, Assam, through northern Burma into the Yunnan province of China. For that purpose the terrain was terrible, the rainy season made construction extraordinarily difficult, but through heroic and sacrificial effort, a lot of help from the Indians and the peoples of northern Burma, we were able to push the road through. As a matter of fact, however, the road was never used significantly for the purpose for which it was built. We had constructed back in the United States several thousand special truck-trailer combinations to be used to haul supplies across that road into China but by the time we got the road open the DC-4 aircraft could do the job of sixty truck-trailer combinations because a DC-4 could make the trip over the hump in the Yunnan province of China in about an hour, could make several flights a day and the two to three week journey by road by truck-trailer combination simply was not practical. My job as Chief of War Plans for General Stilwell was as much political as military. Most people have overlooked the fact that General Stilwell was sent out to the China-Burma-India Theater with an impossible mission. His job was to try to get the Chinese in China and the British army in India, made up mostly of various Indian troops, to fight the Japanese as soon and as hard as possible. But it was apparent that Chiang Kai-shek was not going to commit such forces as he had strongly against the Japanese because he was looking over his shoulder at the Communist in China at the end of the war, and he could see MacArthur and Nimitz steadily advancing across the Pacific. It was also obvious that Mr. [Winston Leonard Spencer] Churchill was not going to commit the British army in India in any serious way against the Japanese until the defeat of Hitler because the army in India was the only imperial reserve which Churchill had. The army in India provided many of the forces that were able to hold on in the Middle East at a time when the war was going very badly for the allies. So General Stilwell, without any major American forces of his own, was in the position of saying to both the Chinese and to the British, " ; I will hold your coat, now get out there and fight." ; The result was that frustration, disappointment, irritation both with regard to the British and with regard to the Chinese, were built into the very nature of General Stilwell' ; s role out there. There were many ruffled feathers to be smoothed, we had some problems with the Indian National Movement, many of whose leaders were in jail. For example, they demanded to know when we would stop killing their cattle to feed our troops. Our supply lines back to the United States were very long across submarine infested waters and it was important for us to subsist on the land as much as we could. We finally agreed that we would not slaughter cattle that were not over twelve years old and that we would do so in screened areas which would not be seen by those peoples who might object. Of course, that meant that we ate a great deal of hamburger, because cattle more than twelve years old tend to be pretty tough and scrawny. The Indian Nationalists also demanded that we give permission to our soldiers to marry Indian girls. We compromised by agreeing that if a soldier were under orders to go home and was within thirty days of point of embarkation either by ship or by air, then we would then give him permission to marry. There was a general rule that troops in active theaters of operation were not to marry local people. I believe that was true in Europe and in the Pacific. As a matter of fact, when a soldier was within thirty days of embarkation, he wasn' ; t too much interested in local marriage, but the principle had been accepted and that seemed to satisfy the British Nationalists. There was a bitter struggle between General Stilwell and his own subordinate General Clair [Lee] Chennault about how to use such materials as we could move across the hump. General Chennault and Chiang Kai-shek wanted almost a monopoly on that tonnage for his air force, but General Stilwell knew that if Chennault' ; s air operations were beefed up without strong Chinese ground capabilities alongside of it that the Japanese would simply move in and take over his air fields which indeed they did. That controversy moved all the way to Washington and one of my jobs was to draft most of the cables which represented General Stilwell point of view on that standing strategic difference of view. END OF SIDE 2 Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O.xml RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH/findingaid
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
91 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Rusk 7O, Dean Rusk autobiographical sketch, Part 1, circa 1985
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL214DROH-Rusk7O
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Subject
The topic of the resource
Education
World War, 1939-1945
United States. Army--Officers
United States--Veterans
Description
An account of the resource
Part one of an autobiographical sketch by Dean Rusk, as told to Richard Rusk.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dean Rusk
Richard Rusk
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ca. 1985
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dean Rusk Oral History Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States--Officials and employees
Politics and Public Policy
Description
An account of the resource
The collection consists of 172 oral history interviews with Dean Rusk and his colleagues between 1984-1989. Includes audiotapes and transcriptions documenting Rusk's life from early childhood in the 1910's through his teaching career in the 1980's. The interviews contain information on Rusk's service as U.S. Under Secretary and Secretary of State during the administrations of Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson and his involvement in foreign relations including the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. The interviews also document his position as president of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s.<br /><br /><a href="http://georgiaoralhistory.libs.uga.edu/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&range=&collection=14&type=&tags=OHMS&featured=&subcollections=0&subcollections=1&submit_search=Search+for+items">View all OHMS indexed interviews in this collection here.</a>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard Geary Rusk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984-1989
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL214DROH
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Circa 1985 Rusk 7S, Dean Rusk autobiographical sketch, Part 5, circa 1985 RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S RBRL214DROH Dean Rusk Oral History Collection Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia oral history 1:|11(5)|19(8)|25(7)|34(11)|43(16)|50(7)|62(14)|71(8)|88(1)|92(6)|101(3)|110(8)|120(1)|130(6)|137(10)|147(4)|155(1)|164(13)|173(11)|182(13)|192(8)|202(7)|210(4)|218(11)|227(14)|236(1)|246(5)|253(7)|263(13)|272(2)|279(3)|287(5)|295(8)|306(8)|314(3)|326(2)|337(10)|348(11)|357(9)|366(14)|376(4)|387(5)|395(10)|406(8)|415(6)|428(9)|436(16)|448(8)|457(12)|468(15)|476(9)|484(14)|492(4)|503(1)|514(5)|522(14)|533(9)|543(10)|551(6)|562(9)|569(11)|578(8)|585(12)|596(4)|605(7)|616(2)|626(15)|636(5)|644(16)|653(1)|665(2)|672(13)|681(4)|689(15)|698(1)|708(4)|717(14)|727(15)|735(6)|745(7)|752(13)|760(11)|769(2)|778(5)|785(9)|792(2)|801(11)|809(3)|817(7)|824(6) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_b2ymkvbw& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_7xgncqgd" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 2 Anecdote from time at Oxford University / The League of Nations --had an invitation there from the lord and lady of the local manor house to come and have tea with them the next afternoon. Dean Rusk shares a story from his time in Oxford, England about attending tea at the local manor house. Later, he discusses the League of Nations, focusing on its historical role and effectiveness. He illustrates his view using the example of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Benito Mussolini ; Litton Commission Report ; pacifism ; Senate Foreign Relations Committee ; trench warfare ; Wellington Coo ; Winston Churchill ; World War I ; World War II ; WWI ; WWII 17 577 German support for Adolf Hitler During Oxford vacations, I spent a good many of those in Germany. Dean Rusk talks about the motivations and forms of German support for Hitler during his rise to power. He focuses on his observations from the times he studied in different German cities. < ; i> ; Mein Kampf< ; /i> ; ; German inflation ; The National Socialist German Workers' Party ; the Nazis ; The Weimar Republic ; Treaty of Versailles ; World War II 17 1011 Time at Oxford University There was one thing at Oxford that I particularly enjoyed. Dean Rusk shares about studying at Oxford University. He discusses Professor Alfred Zimmern, the Rhodes Scholarship, having American guests, exams, and life at St. John's College. Cecil Peace Prize ; Cecil Rhodes ; Junior Common Room ; Lord Robert Cecil 17 1734 China-Burma-India theater during WWII One little matter not related to anything we have been talking about, Rich... Dean Rusk talks about his time serving in the CBI theater. He focuses on the condition of Japan and China during WWII, discussing the U.S. goals and strategies to stop Japan. General Frank Merrill ; Pearl Harbor ; President Franklin Roosevelt ; Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ; Truman Administration ; World War II 17 2275 Creating a supply line to China Nevertheless, it was a substantial effort. Our job was to try to find some way to get supplies into China. Dean Rusk shares the difficulties the Allies faced in creating a supply line to China, including terrain, snipers, and lack of supplies. General Earl Gilmore Wheeler ; Lord Louis Mountbatten ; Madam Chiang Kai-shek ; President Roosevelt ; World War II 17 2812 Working with General Joseph Stilwell and Winston Churchill / Chinese forces in Burma And by the time the road to China was completed, it was safe and secure from a military point of view, and we had driven the Japanese much farther south. Dean Rusk talks about working with Stilwell and Churchill during WWII, sharing about their leadership styles and personalities. Later, Rusk discusses the Chinese forces in Burma. He focuses on their potential as soldiers, military corruption, and their sense of property. CBI theater ; Chiang Kai-shek ; China-Burma-India theater ; Merrill's Marauders ; Operation GRAPPLE ; Operation PINPRICK ; Vinegar Joe Stilwell ; World War II 17 3306 Predicting the end of WWII as Chief of War Plans / Pearl Harbor It's hard to say to what extent the mission of the China-Burma-India theater was performed... Dean Rusk talks about having to predict the end date of WWII for other staff officers because of his role as Chief of War Plans. Later, he discusses the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He focuses on the surprise of the U.S. intelligence community. Colonel James Compton ; G-2 military intelligence ; World War II 17 3642 The China-Burma-India theater One of the successful parts of our operation in the China-Burma-India theater was flying material across the hump to China. Dean Rusk talks about various aspects of the CBI theater in WWII, including difficulty transporting supplies, the effectiveness of different types of forces, and situations where he witnessed or avoided combat. British East African battalion ; flying the hump ; General Joseph Stilwell ; Japanese Zero planes ; modern warfare ; Siege of Myitkyina 17 4406 Decolonization of Asia One little interesting matter: President Roosevelt felt very strongly that the major colonial areas of Asia should come out of World War II as independent nations: India, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Indochina. Dean Rusk speaks about the decolonization of the colonial areas in Asia, focusing on President Roosevelt's changing opinion and the ways history would have changed had Asian countries come out of WWII as independent nations. CBI theater ; China-Burma-India theater ; George Cartlett Marshall ; Indochina ; Marshall Plan ; NATO ; North Atlantic Treaty Organization ; Office of Strategic Services ; OSS ; Prime Minister Winston Churchill ; the British Empire ; World War II 17 5000 Cooperation between the U.S., France, and England Now, we entered another chapter when the North Koreans attacked South Korea in 1950 because it was clear that this was a major attack by the North Koreans of a broad front for the purpose of seizing South Korea. Dean Rusk discusses the relationship between the U.S., France and England during the Korean War and WWII. communism ; Eisenhower Administration ; Indochina ; Seventh Fleet ; U.S. foreign aid 17 DEAN RUSK: --had an invitation there from the lord and lady of the local manor house to come and have tea with them the next afternoon. Well, we all had been growing beards and were pretty crummy, so we debated whether or not we would get cleaned up and accept. We decided that we should because part of her invitation was motivated by the fact that there were some Americans nearby and she wanted to extend some hospitality. So we got cleaned up and when we got over there we found that the hostess, the lady of the manor, was that same lady who was in the car at the filling station the afternoon before. During a lull in the conversation, she said, " ; Oh, young gentlemen, I must tell you ; yesterday I saw the most horrible creature I have ever seen in my life." ; Then she proceeded to describe me in some detail. Well, we all laughed and then we told her about it, and she was a very good sport and thought it was very amusing. I didn' ; t care very much for the food in England. They would serve watery beef and veal and lamb and they didn' ; t pay much attention to preparing their food in a tasteful fashion. I thought that their facilities, such as their bath and toilet facilities, were much more primitive than they need have been in that kind of society which had, after all, launched the industrial revolution. There was a general absence of central heating which, coming from the South in this country, I found a little difficult at times. But I also thought that the British, despite their worldwide empire, were relatively indifferent to customs and manners and cultures in other parts of the world. As far as many of them were concerned, I was still from " ; out there in the colonies" ; and many of them had very few up-to-date ideas about what America, the United States, was all about. One little example of the kind of arch attitude that they sometimes took: My tutor in politics, W.C. Costin, in tutorial one week, made a rather nasty remark to me about the fact that our Supreme Court justices are appointed to the Court because of politics, that most of them had come through the political track. Well, I went off to the library and did a thumbnail biographic sketch of British law lords, who are the equivalent of our Supreme Court, over a period of about two hundred years and found that about ninety percent of them came through the political track, junior members of the ministry or cabinet or attorney general or something of that sort. When I presented that evidence to my tutor, he was utterly surprised because they had sort of assumed that somehow their law lords were appointed within the framework of political purity. During my first term at Oxford, the Japanese seized Manchuria. I felt instinctively that something very important was happening and I spent an enormous amount of time trying to follow the Manchurian dispute in great detail. I studied the reports that came out in the League of Nations, such as the Litton Commission Report. I spent an awful lot of time on it. As I look back on it, that time was wasted because it was merely one of the episodes that produced World War II. But there was a strong sense of pacifism during my time at Oxford. The League of Nations was not looked upon as an instrument for enforcing the peace. I remember Wellington Coo, representing China, standing before the League of Nations, pleading for help of the world community against the invasion of Japan, and it was help that never came. In the early 1930s, the scars of World War I were still very apparent and frequently discussed. In World War I, Britain, and I suppose Britain was not alone, lost a high proportion of its young manpower in that dreadful trench warfare. Wars in which maybe 200,000 men would be lost in only 400 yards of ground. I have heard the term " ; decimated" ; about the youth of England in that war. Since decimated means reduced to a tenth, I think that word is somewhat exaggerated, but nevertheless they lost a great many of the flower of their youth in that World War I, and it made a very deep impression. That was very much in Churchill' ; s mind when he was one of the leaders in World War II ; he simply wasn' ; t going to go through that kind of war again. No, I think that Britain suffered dreadfully in that war and one could feel it ; it was on people' ; s minds. Almost no family was without a casualty in World War I. RICHARD RUSK: Did they have any clue as to what was coming in 1931? DEAN RUSK: No, not really. Because when you look ahead the trigger point in World War II was almost surely the seizure of Manchuria by the Japanese and the refusal of the world community to take any action against Japan. That was repeated again when [Benito] Mussolini in 1935, I think it was, marched into Ethiopia. And again, there was the frail little figure of Emperor Haile Selassie standing before the League of Nations pleading for help. At that point, at least, the League of Nations began to discuss economic sanctions against Italy, but in America the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would not even let Cordell Hull make a statement saying that if the League of Nations imposed sanctions upon Italy, we would not frustrate those sanctions by insisting upon our right to trade as a neutral nation, We weren' ; t ever willing to go that far. RICHARD RUSK: The League itself was a brand new idea, brand new concept, but prior to the creation of the League, was there ever any incident where the international community would come to the aid of a country that was under attack? DEAN RUSK: No, I suppose that the closest to collective security prior to that was the loose federation of European forces which finally put themselves together to oppose Napoleon, at least in anything like modern times. But after Mussolini went into Ethiopia and got away with it, there was the Civil War in Spain. [Francisco] Franco' ; s forces moved to overthrow the Republican government of Spain ; Mussolini and Hitler actively participated with Franco with airplanes, weapons, personnel, but the democracies simply looked the other way and pretended that this was nothing but a civil war ; finally drove the supporters of the Republican government in Spain into the hands of the communists. During Oxford vacations, I spent a good many of those in Germany and that was the period when the Nazis and Adolf Hitler were rising to power. I watched the Storm troopers take the streets and the public platforms away from the democratic parties of Germany. In political campaigns, the Nazis would break up other people' ; s meetings and they would guard their own. They would put on these big parades through cities and would attack anybody else' ; s parades who would try to do the same thing. My first excursion to Germany was to Hannover, where I went to study the German language. I had been told that in Hannover they spoke the purest German spoken in Germany, and I took German lessons at the University of Hannover. The next vacation, I went up to Hamburg and studied economics, Hamburg being a great trade and economic center. In both instances I lived with families and pretty much concentrated on my studies because the vacation was limited in scope. But already the Nazis were stirring and you could see the attraction of the Nazi party and the program to many Germans who had suffered through the trials and tribulations of the Weimar Republic. You see, during the 1920s there had been this devastating inflation which had wiped out the value of any kind of currency or savings or anything of that sort and Britain, France, the United States did less than might have been done to help the Weimar Republic get back on its feet. Then I went to Berlin to study, first at the Hochschule fur Politik because I wanted to do a seminar with Professor [Viktor] Bruns in international law but by that time the Nazi momentum was gaining a great deal of momentum. Nazi students in this seminar insisted that we do nothing in the seminar but study the illegality of the Treaty of Versailles, which was one of the doctrines of the Nazi party. Then I moved across to the University of Berlin, but even there the Nazi influence was beginning to be felt very strongly. I remember attending a lecture given by a professor in the University of Berlin on the subject of how best to incorporate the Germans in the United States into the Third Reich. He debated in his lecture seriously about whether they should demand territorial enclaves in places like Milwaukee, St. Louis, or whether they should try to do it simply through party organization as branches of the Nazi party. It was almost ridiculous to see how serious he was about something which was almost nothing but wild dreams. One of the tragic recollections I have was that many young Germans my own age, student age, in the beginning supported Adolf Hitler for what might be called idealistic reasons ; they wanted to see the public morale of Germany restored ; they wanted to see Germany respected among the nations of the world ; they wanted to get away from some of the despair and lethargy and economic problems affecting Germany. They didn' ; t really believe what Adolf Hitler had written in Mein Kampf. It was not until later that they realized the extent to which they had been betrayed. So, Adolf Hitler came in partly through the use of pressure, use of force on the streets, but partly through a kind of seductiveness that took into camp an awful lot of people. That, I think, is one of the tragedies of the German experience during the 1930s and World War II. While I was studying in Berlin, I lived with a family out in Neubabelsberg near Potsdam, and this was a place of many lakes. So one day I was out in a canoe, and I pulled the canoe up on a little sand bank to go into a little restaurant to have lunch. When I got back my canoe was gone. I notified the water police and about an hour later, they came pulling up in their little boat towing my canoe and they said to me, " ; Here is your canoe ; we have caught the thief and he will be punished, but we are fining you five marks for tempting thieves." ; I had not tied or locked my canoe. I thought of that often afterwards because when you look over the events and sad story of the 1930s, I think that we democracies, with our pacifism and indifference to aggression elsewhere, were guilty of tempting thieves. For example, when Hitler marched his army into the Rhineland, contrary to the Treaty of Versailles, we learned later that in his orders to his troops he said that if the French show any sign of resistance, you German troops come back home. But the French did not show any sign of resistance and he occupied the Rhineland and discovered that he could get away with it without being punished. That helped to build the momentum of aggression in his mind, then Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then his attack on Poland which finally triggered World War II. This matter of tempting thieves is a problem that we have to think about in terms of preventing war, particularly the larger wars. There was one thing at Oxford that I particularly enjoyed: Professor Alfred Zimmern was professor of international relations at Oxford, and almost every Sunday he would have an open house in his own home for any students who wanted to drop in. Often he would have some distinguished visitor from the continent or someone up from London to be there to visit with students and talk things over. For example, he had [Edvard] Benes from Czechoslovakia on Sunday ; we all enjoyed that. Professor Zimmern, later upon his retirement from Oxford, became a professor at Hartford College in Connecticut in the United States, and I corresponded with him until he died. But that kind of informal discussion and contact at Oxford was very valuable. I had one lucky break at Oxford which helped me get out of there without winding up in a debtor' ; s prison. The Rhodes scholarship stipend was just enough to cover essentials and you had to watch it very closely to be able to get by on it. I had no further resources of my own to call on. But my travels in Germany proved to be a little expensive so I had run up some bills at Oxford. The spring of 1934, I was in Germany about to come back for my final term at Oxford, and I got a telegram from David French, my roommate and friend, who reminded me of the Cecil Peace Prize competition. A prize established by Lord Robert Cecil for the best essay among British colleges and universities on any subject dealing with international affairs. David French told me in this telegram that the deadline for getting in a paper was about one week away, and I could not come to Oxford unless I submitted a paper. So I holed myself up in a little hotel there in Berlin and wrote for about five days straight. I picked as my topic some reflections on the relationship between the British Commonwealth of Nations on the one side and the League of Nations on the other. I got this paper off just ahead of the deadline and shortly after that I learned that I had won the prize. The prize was one hundred pounds. Well, a hundred pounds was five hundred dollars in those days and that allowed me to pay my bills and just squeak home. Once at Oxford I was having some American friends in for breakfast, and when I put in the order with my scout for breakfast I asked him to serve cantaloupe as the first course. He went down to the battery and came back and said, " ; The Master of the battery wants to know if you really mean that you want cantaloupe." ; I said, " ; Yes, of course that is what I would like to have." ; So he served the cantaloupe and my bill came in at the end of the term and those cantaloupes were five dollars a piece. They probably were hothouse cantaloupes or had been shipped in from the tropics somewhere. But that was a pretty expensive breakfast as far as I was concerned in those days. St. John' ; s College had a marvelous wine cellar. I am sure that the fellows in the college, the Dons, spent a fair amount of time sampling the wines all over Europe and getting some of the best ones into St. John' ; s College. St. John' ; s was noted for having one of the best wine cellars in all of Oxford. While I was at Oxford, I really had beamed at college and university teaching in the international field. It seemed to me that that was where the action was ; that was where the really important things were going on. I had come to have a real appreciation for the quality of life in academia with its relatively free time in between class sessions and fairly long vacations and so forth. I had long since given up any idea of going into the ministry and I had no taste whatever for going into the rat race of business competition. I had not, at that point, really begun to think of government service as such. As a matter of fact my government service began while I was on the faculty at Mills. I got a little summons from Uncle Sam to report for duty as a reserve officer in December of 1940. It was those six years of military service which led to my going to the State Department. I began that trail. But my ideas were really aimed at college and university teaching in the international field. During my first term at Oxford I think I was hazed a little by my fellow students because I was appointed to chair a committee of the Junior Common Room--the Junior Common Room being the organized students of the college--to wait on the president of the college to petition for a powder room for ladies in the college. There were no such facilities and if you had a lady guest and she needed to withdraw, you would have to take her outside the college, across the street down into an underground and put a penny in the slot and let her do what she had to do. The president of the college at that time was old Dr. James, a heavily bearded man in his eighties whom we called the Bodger and so I, with two other members of the committee, went into call on him. We went in to see him, and I made my speech asking for a powder room. When I got through he simply glared at us and said, " ; What a monstrous proposal." ; And that was the end of that. I am quite sure that the officers of the Junior Common Room knew very well what would happen to me if I were on this committee but they nevertheless stuck my nose into it. When we all had finished our final exams at Oxford, the Dons of the college gave an wing-ding of a party for those who had-just gone through the exams, wine and other liquids were flowing freely. I remember at that party that one of my tutors made a rather stuffy remark about what fine lecturers they had at Oxford. So I said, " ; Well, I suppose not all of them are. I remember the fellow who was lecturing on [David] Hume. I went to his lecture and the first day there were about 225 students there and this young man came in with his back to the audience and mumbled ; the second lecture there were about 75 students there and he did the same thing. For the third lecture we were about down to 30 and he did the same thing and I quit. He wasn' ; t a very good lecturer." ; And my tutor said, " ; Well what did you do about Hume?" ; And I said, " ; I had to work it up on my own." ; So he said, " ; Well, that might have been the best lecturer you had." ; We would meet our tutor at Oxford once a week and for a time you might have two tutors going at the same time and have two tutorials a week. But at each tutorial you would bring in an essay, maybe 18 or 20 pages, long on a topic that had been agreed on the week before and the procedure of the tutorial was for your tutor to go over your essay and criticize and discuss it and to branch out from there into other things. But these weekly essays turned out to be exactly the kind of writing that was required in the final exams. So that you had that practice in getting ready for the kinds of essays that had to be written for the exams. Richard, I don' ; t think you should use this in any of your writing but on my final exams at Oxford, I remember that about halfway through one of my philosophy papers, I simply tore it up and started over again, I did not think that I had done very well. Well, when the written exams were over in ten days or two weeks, you come up before a board of oral examiners for the oral part of your examination. When I went before the oral examiners, they made such complimentary remarks about my exam and didn' ; t press me on any additional questions. I went back and reported to my Dons at my own college what the oral examiners had said. They said, " ; Oh well, you are a certain first." ; The grades being first class, second class, third class, fourth class. However, when the results came out, I found myself with a second. Then I got a note of apology from the examiners because apparently the philosophy reader on the exam had gotten my paper mixed up with somebody else' ; s. I may be the only person who has had a note of apology from the examiners at Oxford University. But I got the gentleman' ; s second, which is a very respectable outcome. One little matter not related to anything we have been talking about--I had been a friend of John Foster Dulles during the Truman administration, during the negotiation of the Japanese Peace Treaty. When I was at the Rockefeller Foundation he became secretary of state. At the end of the 100th day in office, I wrote him a long letter, about three pages, commenting on how he was doing with respect to the various parts of his job. Eight years later when I had finished my own 100 days, my secretary Phyllis [D.] Bernau, who had been John Foster Dulles' ; secretary, very quietly came in on the 100th day and laid on my desk a copy of this letter which I had written to John Foster Dulles eight years earlier. So just for fun, I sent a copy of that letter to Mr. Shultz when he took office. When I arrived in New Delhi to serve under General Stilwell, I was assigned to the G-3 section in the New Delhi headquarters, so-called Rear Echelon, the Forward Echelon was up in Assam and there was another headquarters over in China, but the headquarters in New Delhi was the headquarters for all American forces in China, Burma and India. Since I was directly involved with war plans from the very beginning, I spent a great deal of time traveling into Assam, to China, down to Ceylon where Lord Louis Mountbatten' ; s headquarters were. I usually travelled in a small, converted bomber that had been turned into a staff plane but they were piston planes and very slow and there were times when it seemed that I spent more time in the air getting from one place to another that I did on the ground. My direct superior at the beginning was General Frank [Dow] Merrill, who later became commander of Merrill' ; s Marauders and took that group into Burma. But he was my immediate chief, and I found him a very able and agreeable man for whom to work. We remained friends until his death from a heart attack quite a few years ago. We had two major missions. One was to try to encourage the Chinese as well as the British army in India to take on the Japanese as quickly as possible and the other was to cut through a supply line to China. The Japanese had interrupted the old Burman Flying Tiger days. We thought it was very important, as did Washington, to try to get some supplies into China to keep China in the war because if they simply dropped out of the war, it would release very large numbers of Japanese forces to be turned against MacArthur and [Chester William] Nimitz who were coming across the Pacific. RICHARD RUSK: What kind of war making potential did China have back in those years? DEAN RUSK: We sometimes forget that China had been fighting the Japanese for a decade prior to Pearl Harbor. After all, Manchuria was seized in 1931 and following that the Japanese moved in on the coastal areas of China and imposed great losses upon the Chinese forces. I think many people underestimated the erosion of the ten years of warfare on the political and economic structure of China itself. That was a decade when China was getting no help from the outside. As a matter of fact, we ourselves continued to send scrap iron and oil to Japan to be used in making arms for the attack on China ; pretty disgraceful story. But when Pearl Harbor came along, we needed for our own purposes that idea that there was a China, a great country that was a local ally, strongly fighting the Japanese, and we created a kind of idealized picture of what was left of free China because things were very grim for us just after Pearl Harbor. For example, think of March 1942, three months after Pearl Harbor. Imagine that President Roosevelt might have gone on a nationwide radio hookup and said the following: " ; My fellow Americans, I have some very serious things to say to you. Hitler' ; s armies are smashing at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad ; [Erwin] Rommel is rushing through north Africa toward Cairo ; my intelligence people tell me [because they were at the time] that Russia will be knocked out of the war in the course of the next six or eight weeks. We cannot mobilize our own armed forces except at a snail' ; s pace because we simply don' ; t have the arms and equipment for them. The Japanese have just destroyed the heart of our fleet at Pearl Harbor and they are rushing through Asia and we see no way to stop them ; the jig is up." ; Now based upon certain present day standards of something called credibility, had Franklin Roosevelt said that in March of 1942, he would have been telling the truth ; but had he said it, he would have been telling a profound lie because he and Churchill and Joseph Stalin and millions of others built upon hope and confidence and necessity and we defeated the Axis powers. I mention that because China was very important to us during the first part of the war both psychologically and militarily and it was not until MacArthur and Nimitz managed to come right into the Philippines and into Okinawa and places like that that we knew that we did not have to rely upon China for help in the actual defeat of Japan in the main islands of Japan. RICHARD RUSK: What percent of Japan' ; s war power was tied down there in Asia? DEAN RUSK: It is a little hard to say but at least there were hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, Japanese soldiers in China in one capacity or another. Some of them were line of communications troops to supply the Japanese effort farther south but, I think, during the war itself, we exaggerated some of the Japanese forces. For example, we thought there was an elite Japanese route army in Manchuria. Well, at the end of the war, when the Russians got into the war against Japan for about four days, we found that the Japanese army in Manchuria had become something of a shell because they had drawn a lot of officers' ; men out of it to reinforce their forces in the Pacific. Nevertheless, it was a substantial effort so our job was to try to find some way to get supplies into China. We looked at all possible ground routes. As a matter of fact, we even looked at the possibility of going up through Afghanistan and coming through extreme western China. We scoured Asia for ways of getting into China, but cutting a road back through Burma seemed to be the only really feasible way to do it. On one occasion, while I was still in the Pentagon back in Washington, Madam Chiang Kai-shek came to Washington and she went in to see President Roosevelt. After her visit we got a note from FDR in the Pentagon saying that Madam Chiang Kai-shek had proposed that we open up a coolie pack route from India into China over the mountains and that the Chinese would furnish whatever number of people, one to two million, to carry loads into China by foot. Well, it didn' ; t take us long to figure out that on that three or four week journey, that each Chinese soldier would eat two or three times his load and there was no food in that area ; it was an utterly desolate area. We sent a little note to FDR saying, " ; Mr. President, this is not feasible because these coolies would eat more than they could carry on this kind of journey." ; Back came a little note from him saying, " ; Then drop their food to them by air." ; And we had to send back a little note saying, " ; Mr. President, if we had the planes to drop their food by air, we could take the supplies into China to begin with." ; That just illustrates how desperate people were to try to find some way of getting into China. But the route from Assam, through Burma into China was very difficult terrain indeed--beautiful country in the dry weather but when the monsoons came up and the rains began to fall, it just became a quagmire so the engineering problems were formidable indeed. I personally was not involved in the planning and construction of this road although it was within our theater, but we had General [Earle Gilmore] Wheeler, particularly, and one or two others, whose names I will dig out, in charge of the actual construction. The road was about three hundred miles, but it was winding, the ground was treacherous, there were many streams to be bridged and of course there were Japanese taking potshots. There were times when men had to drive bulldozers with a little piece of metal up in front of them as protection against snipers. We used a great deal of Indians in front of them as protection against snipers. We used a great deal of Indian labor and Burmese labor. The Karens and the Kachins, two north Burmese tribes were available to us and were very helpful to us in trying to mobilize some forces to get that road built ; but that was a two-year effort and required an enormous amount of toil but it was a contingency kind of effort, somewhat like the Alkin Highway built into Alaska, we built that in the event we needed it. But as I said earlier in another tape, we couldn' ; t be sure that if we defeated the Japanese on their own home islands that the Japanese forces in China would then surrender, the war might be continued in China itself. After all, all of our experience with Japanese forces, up to that point, had been that they were fanatical in their conduct of the war and that they just fought to the last, so we just didn' ; t know. We had a big problem with our line of communications back to the United States. It was long, it was slow, and there were periods when we would lose half of our ships trying to come to the China-Burma-India Theater to submarines down in the south Atlantic. I remember once Lord Louis Mountbatten was furious that among three ships which were on their way out the only ship that survived happened to have a good deal of its space taken up with a box of chocolates for every American in the theater, whereas the ship with arms and other crucially needed supplies got sunk. But Washington was a long way away, and it was not easy to get the Pentagon to understand the circumstances in which we were operating. For example, we could see that we and the British were going to return to Burma from the north, we would find ourselves on these narrow gauged rail lines but without any engines, without any rolling stock, and so quite early in 1943, we sent a cable back to the Pentagon to ask them to prepare for us some small locomotives for a narrow track which could be moved in by air and the Pentagon just pooh-poohed us on the idea of an airborne locomotive. But when we actually got in Burma and got hold of a part of that rail system, we needed such things and so we had to construct some light locomotives out of jeeps by putting flange wheels on them and pulling whatever we could. Another instance of lack of imagination in the Pentagon: We had a homing pigeon communications company out there. Under the circumstances we were faced with in Burma, that homing pigeon company was very useful at times. One day some of the Chinese troops got into the pigeon coops and they made pigeon stew out of all the pigeons, so we sent a telegram-- END OF SIDE 1 BEGINNING OF SIDE 2 DEAN RUSK: We asked the Pentagon for a complete replacement for the pigeon compliment for the such and such Sigma Company. Back came a telegram from the Pentagon saying, " ; Request denied. It is the assumption of the tables of organization that the pigeons would furnish their own replacements." ; We had not told them that the Chinese troops had eaten these pigeons. In 1944, the Japanese became aware of the continuing build-up of Allied potential in India and so they launched a major offensive against eastern India to try to break that up. An account of that campaign is fully described in General [William Joseph] Slim' ; s fine book on the subject and you will have to read that for it. General Slim was a fine British commander. During that operation, when the British forces were very hard pressed, we used whatever air we had in support of British forces, and it worked out very well. We defeated the Japanese in that campaign and opened the way for us to move much more deeply into Burma. By the time the road to China was completed, it was safe and secure from a military point of view, and we had driven the Japanese much farther south. For operations in Burma and India we were under the control of the British chiefs of staff who were the executive agents for the U.S.-British combined chiefs of staff for that theater, just as the American chiefs of staff were the executive agents for campaigns in Europe and in the Pacific. Being under the British chiefs of staff meant, in effect, that we were under Mr. Churchill' ; s command and he tended to follow things that were going on out there in considerable detail. I had a little long range exchange with him at a time when he didn' ; t know me from Adam' ; s off ox. We received an order from him to launch a long range penetration group, a [Orde C.] Wingate-type operation, into Burma. This group would involve about 3,000 men who would wander around shooting at whatever Japs they could find, but they weren' ; t going to seize any terrain or capture any particular objectives, they were going in there for four or five weeks and then come on back, supplied by air the entire time. It was an operation that had no perceptible influence on the outcome of the war. So as Chief of War Plans, I gave this operation the code name PINPRICK. Well, when that got back to London, out came a rocket from Mr. Churchill saying, " ; Change of name of PINPRICK to GRAPPLE." ; Well, that may be one of the differences between Mr. Churchill and myself. General Stilwell kept pressing Washington for at least two divisions of American ground forces to be used out there. He thought it would greatly speed up the effort to break back into Burma, recapture Burma and open up the road to China, but the European and Pacific theaters, quite rightly, had much higher priority for such forces and he was denied them. But he was finally given a brigade that came to be called " ; Merrill' ; s Marauders." ; These were volunteers from the European and Pacific theaters. I think these fellows came out there with the idea that they would have one operation and then they would all go home ; but it was sort of a patchwork kind of operation with a good deal of gallant people in it. In any event, since that was the only ground force that General Stilwell had, he used it much more than perhaps commanders are entitled the use of such a force. He drove them unmercifully and they were operating in extreme conditions. For example, they encamped in one area where there was typhus on ticks and a lot of the men came down with typhus. Fortunately, we discovered that if they were treated up at the 20th General Hospital, up in Assam under air-conditioned equipment, that they could do pretty well in bringing them out of it ; there was malaria, there was nothing but emergency rations for them to eat ; it was a pretty tough operation and General Stilwell expended Merrill' ; s Marauders and they wound up being a unit which really had no further combat capability. General Stilwell was a foot soldier. He didn' ; t like headquarters, he didn' ; t like the political relationships involved in high command. He was always out in the field with the troops. I suppose he might have been a superb division commander in combat, but he was impatient with all the things that go along with the highest levels of command. He got the nickname " ; Vinegar Joe" ; because of certain mannerisms he had. In fact, he was a very warm human being with great compassion. For example, he spent a good deal of time in China before World War II and he had a great feeling for the Chinese people. He felt, and I think quite properly, that if Chinese soldiers were properly equipped, properly trained, and properly led that they would be good soldiers. I think he proved that with some of the Chinese troops in Burma, but he was deeply distressed by the inadequacies, the corruption, the failure of the Chiang Kai-shek government to do what ought to have been done for the Chinese people and he was always on the side of the common people in China rather than the government and the high command. Corruption was a serious problem there. For example, when we furnished Atabrine to the Chinese forces as protection against malaria, we had to have an American in the mess line to put this Atabrine down the throats of the Chinese so that their officers wouldn' ; t collect all the Atabrine and send it back to China and sell it on the black market. We could never separate a Chinese unit from its arms and equipment. For example, if we wanted a Chinese unit to move as fast as possible from point A to point B and we told them to leave all of their stuff and we would fly this stuff to them when they reached point B, they simply wouldn' ; t do it. They had almost a fanatical sense of property and one of the instructions we gave to our men out there was never try to take anything away from a Chinese soldier, he would kill you. There were times when General Stilwell had to take unusual measures to spur the Chinese to advance even in the area where we thought there were few, if any, Japanese. There were some occasions when we told them that their supplies for the next day would be dropped at such and such a point, which might be fifteen miles farther down the road and if they wanted their supplies, they would have to go down there to get it, so they would move. On one occasion General Stilwell wanted a Chinese unit to move and they were bucking the move so he just took his carbine and headed down the road toward the Japanese and left it to the Chinese as a matter of face to trail along with him. But in general, the Chinese forces in Burma, given all the circumstances, performed creditably and well and paid off the effort we made to get them trained and armed. It is hard to say to what extent the mission of the China-Burma-India theater was actually performed because before we had any real opportunity to capitalize on what was done there, MacArthur and Nimitz were well on their way across the Pacific and the brunt of the war shifted to the frontal attack on Japan. I have no doubt that if war continued for a much longer period what was done in Burma would have been very useful. One little matter that left some impressions and stuck with me: As Chief of War Plans, I was the person who was supposed to give advice to other staff officers who had their own problems and the chief signal officer and the chief ordinance officer, chief quartermaster, and people like that would come in and say, " ; Look, we have got a long line of communications back to the United States ; we have got to know something about how long we are going to be out here in order to know how to do our planning." ; In effect, they were asking me when the war was going to be over. But I would look at them very solemnly and say, " ; You should plan on our being here until April 1946," ; and they would go away very happy. But one day, one of them on their way out of the door turned around and said, " ; Oh, by the way, how do you know that it is April 1946?" ; I said, " ; I don' ; t know, but I am being paid to give you an answer." ; Of course I did know something about the general war plans for the war itself, and I knew something about the preparations for the invasion of the main island, so April 1946 wasn' ; t too bad a figure. RICHARD RUSK: Was there anything about developments of World War II, specifically your theater, that surprised you at all? Did it go pretty much as you expected it to back in the early 40s? DEAN RUSK: I think, in the first place, I was surprised as everybody else by the attack on Pearl Harbor. I had been assigned to G-2 military intelligence in the War Department in October 1941, two months before Pearl Harbor. But as I said earlier, I was assigned to keep track of the British areas in Asia, not in Japan specifically, but the Japanese section of G-2 was just down the hall from us, and I had friends and fellow officers there. On Pearl Harbor day, I had come into the office very early, six o' ; clock in the morning, because we had pretty good information that the Japanese were going to attack the southwest Pacific on that weekend, and we could track a substantial naval force that was moving in the direction and since this involved Malaya and almost certainly Indonesia, I turned up quite early. But when Pearl Harbor came some of the junior officers in the Japanese section of G-2 were up and down the hall laughing over the first flashes that came in from Pearl Harbor, they simply didn' ; t believe it. Some of them didn' ; t believe it until President Roosevelt went on the radio and actually announced to the nation that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Well, after Pearl Harbor Day, my own colonel, Colonel [James] Compton, came to me with a memorandum in his hand and he said, " ; Dean, you might want to see this, it is very interesting. Take a good look at it because you won' ; t see it again. All the copies are being gathered up and destroyed." ; It was a memorandum that had been prepared about five days earlier in the Japanese section of G-2 indicating points in the Pacific which the Japanese might attack and Pearl Harbor was not even on the list. Had General [Walter C.] Short and the Admiral [Husband E. Kimmel] at Pearl Harbor been brought to trail, had they been court-martialed, some of us would have had a problem of conscience as to whether we should clarify the fact that G-2 simply did not anticipate an attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the successful parts of our operation in the China-Burma-India theater was flying material across the hump to China. We used air fields in northeastern India, up in Assam, but to get the supplies from the port at Calcutta up to Assam was itself a major problem because it was about a 1200 mile journey. There were large rivers to be crossed such as the Irrawaddy, which in the rainy season might be eight or ten miles wide, and of course there was a problem of building air strips on a very difficult terrain. We had little or no heavy equipment, some of them had to be built by hand. And the railroad that went up to that area from Assam was very poor and was very poorly operated. For example, it was just taken for granted up until we got there that when the engineer driving the railroad train got to his own little village, he would just stop the train for three or four hours and go and visit with his friends and family, or when they got to a river to be crossed they would pull up a railroad ferry, broadside along the dock and then they would load these cars onto the ferry one at a time, crosswise on the ferry. Well, we did a lot of things ; we multiplied the tonnage being moved on that railway by putting some trained personnel on there to run the trains, and we put the tracks on these ferries in the longitudinal direction so that we could put five or six cars on the ferry at one time and not just put cars on one at a time crosswise. Now there were times when we perhaps overstrained that railroad. We had one or two wrecks because our fellows would try too hard to make the trains move, but all those problems were pretty well licked in due course, but it took a lot of doing and involved some occasional friction with the Indian authorities and with both the British and Indians who were technically responsible up in that part of India. I found India to be a fascinating country ; extraordinarily complex with all of its ethnic groups and languages. I started taking lessons in Urdu, which was used typically in the British army in India, but after I had quite a few lessons, one of my Indian friends told me that I was simply learning the Urdu of British military command and that I could not use it for any polite conversation among the Indian themselves so I sort of lost interest in learning Urdu. The British army in Indian was made up of many, many different tribes. Many of the best battalions came out of the hill country, people like the Gurkas, the Garhwali' ; s and regiments of that sort. But, I think the Japanese might well have penetrated deeply into India had it not been for the fighting capabilities of those native Indian forces. The British also brought over their East African battalion--all black--and they were an extraordinary group because they could put their packs on their heads and just dogtrot along all day long and just cover enormous amounts of ground and were a very valuable unit in that situation. The terrain was such that armored forces simply weren' ; t very relevant to the fighting out there. It was not tankable country in the usual sense, there was too much water, too many swamps, too much soft ground and so most of the fighting had to be done by an infantryman with a rifle in his hand. None of these kind of modern warfare techniques were very relevant except by air and air supply and techniques of that sort. On one occasion we received word from the Pentagon that several light tanks were on their way to us. Well, we hadn' ; t asked for them and we sent a message back saying that we needed light tanks like we needed holes in the head and for heaven' ; s sake send us some things we really could use because that was very scarce shipping that was being consumed by sending us these light tanks. They were such light tanks that they had no relevance whatever to the European theater. But the light tanks arrived, the Pentagon insisted. Well quite some time later I tried to run down why it was that we got those light tanks and I learned, whether this is true or not I can' ; t personally vouch for it, that a congressional committee was out in the West somewhere looking at military supplies and stores and things of that sort and they saw a large number of these light tanks just sitting out in the field and they asked somebody in the military what these light tanks were for and they were told that those were for the China-Burma-India theater. So we got these tanks that they simply had to get rid of somehow, somewhere and they set outside of Calcutta and rusted and became scrape iron at the end of the war. I would have to say that I personally was not in combat in the China-Burma-India theater. There was one time when three or four of us were in a jeep with General Stilwell going down through the woods in Burma and we got a couple of snipper shots across our brow. General Stilwell stopped the jeep and looked around his staff people who were with him [he had a signal man, and an ordinance man, and people like that] and looked at me and said, " ; Rusk, you are the only infantry-trained man here so let' ; s go and see if we can find those snipers." ; So here I went off with a three-star general scurrying around the woods in Burma looking for Japanese snipers ; we never found them, but that was a brief encounter that proved to be nothing. When the Japanese Zero planes came over our airfields, the drill was that every plane that could do so would take to the air to reduce the chances of being destroyed on the ground. I was in one of the western airfields in China, the name of which I could check on a map, when the red ball warning went up that Zeroes were on the way in, and so my pilot and I jumped in our little DC-3 aircraft and took off. As we headed north to try to get away from any Zeroes that might be coming in, we saw a Zero coming in behind us and there was another DC-3 aircraft off about two miles to our right and for reasons best known to the Japanese pilot, he choose to attack that plane rather than ours and by the time he had shot that plane down we had gotten into some clouds and he was never able to find us. But actually flying the hump was something I was not supposed to do during the period when the Japanese were still in Burma because I was aware of general Allied war plans. There were quite a few of us who were forbidden to fly over enemy-held territory on the theory that we might get shot down and get tortured into revealing some of this material ; but the only way we could get from India into China was over Japanese-held Burma. Fortunately, I wasn' ; t faced with a problem arising from that factor. RICHARD RUSK: You say you never had a great deal of actual combat experience over there ; did you have opportunity to see the actual carnage of what modern warfare does to people? DEAN RUSK: I did not visit the front when the Japanese were involved with their offensive against the British forces along the eastern frontier of India, but in the part of Burma that our forces were in and the Chinese were in, the fighting was more or less open country kind of fighting, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians. There were no pitched battles of any major importance except for the seizure of Myitkyina, which was a key airport road center up in northeast Burma. I did see Myitkyina shortly after it was taken when it was pretty battered and blown up and saw something of the destruction, but it was nothing like the kind of destruction we are familiar with in western Europe or in a place like some of the Pacific islands where everything was just destroyed. The ratio of military forces, both Japanese and Allied forces, the geography in Burma, was so small that it was almost happenstance that you ran into an enemy. I mentioned the Karens and the Kachins in North Burma ; they had been heavily involved with Protestant missionaries who had established mission stations up there. Down in the southern part of Burma around Rangoon, where the predominate culture was Buddhist, there were various movements among the Burmese, some of them sponsored by the Japanese, that were not particularly friendly to the United States. But the American forces in Burma, in our effort to build the road, did not really come into contact with those and those problems did not arise until the end of the war when the question of Burmese independence had come up. One little interesting matter: President Roosevelt felt very strongly that the major colonial areas of Asia should come out of World War II as independent nations: India, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, Indochina. He had tried to press Mr. Churchill very hard to make a commitment to the Indians that this would be the result at the end of the war, but Mr. Churchill was very resistant. One can remember his famous remark, " ; I did not become His Majesty' ; s First Minister to reside over the liquidation of the British Empire." ; And so he resisted this notion. That meant that there was some tension between the American and British forces in India about psychological warfare and in effect public relations kinds of problems because we were there solely for the purpose of trying to fight the Japanese and the British did not want to come clean on their desire to restore British rule in India at the end of the war, so that led to a good many frictions. Indeed, we devised a shoulder patch for the China-Burma-India theater which was worn by every American in the theater and was worn by no one but Americans out there. This shoulder patch showed the star of India, the sun of China and some red and white stripes for the United States. The theory was that with this theater-wide shoulder patch, it would make it easier for the Indians or anybody else to distinguish the Americans and to understand that we were there solely for the purpose of fighting the Japanese. But that was the subject of some controversy. While I am at it, I might say that there is reason to believe that President Roosevelt gave up on his desire to see these areas of Asia emerge from the war as independent nations, somewhere around the beginning of 1945, whether he was getting old and sick or whether he was just tired of butting his head up against Mr. Churchill, I don' ; t know. I saw that because around the middle of 1944, various Frenchmen began to arrive out in the China-Burma-India theater asking to be parachuted into Indochina. Well, we didn' ; t know what the policy drill was back in Washington, so we sent a telegram back reporting that these Frenchmen were there wanting to be parachuted into Indochina and asking for policy guidance as to U.S. policy toward Indochina. Well, weeks passed, months passed, follow-up telegrams produced no result and when a staff officer had to go back to Washington for something, we would ask him to try to get the answer and nothing happened. Finally around the beginning of 1945, there came out to us a joint chiefs of staff paper--light blue fool' ; s cap paper--and the subject of the paper was U.S. policy toward Indochina. On the first sheet it said, " ; The Joint Chiefs of Staff have asked the President for a statement of U.S. policy toward Indochina ; the President' ; s reply is contained in Annex A." ; So I flipped over to Annex A and there was a sheet of paper that said, " ; When asked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a statement of U.S. policy toward Indochina, the President replied, ' ; I don' ; t want to hear any more about Indochina.' ; " ; So there was a gap in policy for a full year there which had very considerable consequences as far as the history of that area was concerned. [As a follow-up question to that ; as Chief of War Plans over there, did you have to make policy to fill that gap or take any actions not necessarily approved by Washington but simply had to be made at the scene by somebody? Incidentally, were these organized French military units?] No, just individuals, probably OSS [Office of Strategic Services] type characters. But when Franklin Roosevelt lost interest in pursuing his anti-colonial policy about those areas, bear in mind that American forces out there were under British command and so for the last year of the war and the immediate postwar period, the arrangements out there were determined by the British and that led to the return of the British to India, Burma, Malaya, return of the Dutch to Indonesia and the return of the French to Indochina. The whole history might have been different had those countries come out of the war independent. They became independent very quickly after the war, but a lot of things might have happened differently. For example, while I was in China-Burma-India, I personally authorized the dropping of arms and American cigarettes to Ho Chi Minh in Indochina because we were ready to help anybody who would shoot at the Japanese, so we encouraged him in his effort to resist the Japanese. We had in the CBI theater a very able group of the Officers Strategic Services, the wartime predecessor of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], and they conducted a good many clandestine operations. They had an extraordinary combination of bluebloods and thugs in the OSS during the war. People right out of Wall Street on the one side, people who probably ought to have been in a penitentiary on the other. And they did many extraordinary things to help out and make things difficult for the Japanese. Their operations were under General Stilwell' ; s command, and it was my job to keep in close touch with them, help them to decide which things to do and which things not to do. When the war was over, just after the French returned to Indochina, we soon found ourselves in the United States launching the [George Catlett] Marshall Plan and NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and in those two great enterprises the active and casual participation of the French was indispensable and what was happening in Indochina itself tended to move on to the back burner because our relations with France were extraordinarily important, say from 1946 to 1949. We did, however, in providing aid to France, some of which went off to help their position in Indochina, we did try to press them to come to a political settlement with the nations of Indochina, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. But we did not want to press them to the point of having them say to us, " ; Alright, we' ; re leaving, but this in your baby," ; because we didn' ; t want that problem in our basket. They made various moves, but we had a succession of French governments during that period, not one of which was strong enough to take the action to really cut the ties between those countries and France and let them move ahead as independent countries. Now, we entered another chapter when the North Koreans attacked South Korea in 1950 because it was clear that this was a major attack by the North Koreans of a broad front for the purpose of seizing South Korea. At the time the attack occurred, we didn' ; t know what else was involved ; what China, the Soviet Union might have in mind in addition to Korea, so President Truman put the Seventh Fleet between Taiwan and the mainland and said that we would resist any attempt to use force across that strait there in either direction, and we substantially increased our aid to the French in Indochina because we were trying to discourage the possibility that the operation in Korea might be broadened into a general Communist assault on neighboring areas in Asia. In retrospect, I think that fear was unfounded because we never got any real evidence that they were planning to attack either Taiwan or Indochina. Nevertheless, that North Korean attack gave rise to stepped-up assistance to the French in Indochina. Some of that assistance we tried to channel directly to the indigenous governments in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, but there were great difficulties with the French when we would try to do that. That was the situation until during the Eisenhower administration and the French were driven out of Indochina and Vietnam was split in half at the Geneva Conference. I mentioned on an earlier tape the running dispute that General Stilwell had with Chiang Kai-shek and General [Claire Lee] Chennault on the use of the tonnage coming over the hump. That was a battle that went all the way back to Washington and there were also some controversies between the British and the Chinese with respect to the role and activities of the Chinese forces in Burma. The British were convinced that the Chinese forces had come into Burma carrying boundary stones in their knapsacks and that they were determined to make good on China' ; s historic claim to a good part of northern Burma. So there was suspicion and friction between the two. Well, I had to carry the brunt of drafting most of General Stilwell' ; s cables back to Washington on both of these disputes. I was told in the summer of 1945 that I had been transferred from the CBI theater back to the Operations Division of the War Department' ; s General Staff because they had found that I had been the principal author of those cables. British-American cooperation out there was not very close up through 1943 and well into 1944. As a matter of fact, it was not until it became clear that Hitler was on the way to being defeated that cooperation significantly increased. As I indicated earlier, Churchill was simply determined that not very much was going to happen out in India and Burma until Hitler was defeated because the British Army in India was the only imperial reserve he had. But when Allied forces began to roll following the Normandy landings, then cooperation became really quite good and Lord Louis Mountbatten contributed greatly to that because he was determined to see to it that the Americans and the British worked well together. He had both British and Americans on his own staff down in Ceylon, and he followed what the Americans, and indeed the Chinese, were doing in Burma closely and with interest, but there were problems really until Hitler was on the way down. I suspect that Mr. Churchill achieved some of his policy of delay simply be sending British commanders out to India who he knew simply were not going to do anything. General Auchinleck came out, General Wavell came out and there was a lethargy about the British headquarters in India that had to be seen to be believed. I think instead of arguing these things out as a matter of policy with Franklin Roosevelt, he just achieved his purposes in that fashion. We were very fortunate in having Colonel Mike Saunders, J.S. Saunders, as the British liaison to the American headquarters and he had an office right alongside of mine. He was a remarkable fellow, friendly, energetic, understanding. He had married an American wife from Michigan, Mel Saunders, lovely woman, and he helped us avoid a great many problems after the war. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S.xml RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL214DROH/findingaid
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
91 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Rusk 7S, Dean Rusk autobiographical sketch, Part 5, circa 1985
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL214DROH-Rusk7S
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
oral histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War, 1939-1945
United States. Army--Officers
United States--Military relations
Foreign relations
United States--Veterans
Description
An account of the resource
Part five of an autobiographical sketch by Dean Rusk, as told to Richard Rusk
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dean Rusk
Richard Rusk
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ca. 1985
OHMS