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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
C-0074, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Josephine Dobbs Clement (1918-1998) was one of six daughters born to Irene Ophelia Thompson Dobbs and John Wesley Dobbs. Her father was a prominent Atlanta, GA, businessman. Clement received her B.S. degree from Spelman College in 1937 and her M.A. from Columbia University the following year. In the late 1940s, she moved with her husband, William A. Clement, to Durham, NC, where she was active in local politics and social justice movements. In this interview, she describes how her father helped instill her with a sense of justice and the tools to protest inequality. In keeping with this heritage, when she arrived in Durham, she quickly became active in the YWCA and the League of Women's Voters, helping to desegregate both of them. Throughout the interview, she maintains that her identities as a woman and an African American could not and should not be fractured. Rather, she argues, true freedom will only come when both racial and gender hierarchies are destroyed. Though her husband became politically active during the 1960s, she did not do so to the same extent. Instead, she participated in activities that concerned her children, and became involved in her community through those outlets. Eventually, these activities led to an appointment to the Durham City-County Charter Commission. After that, she ran for a seat on the city's board of education. During her time on the board, the courts ordered the city schools to desegregate, a change which prompted white flight and drastically altered the racial composition of the city. For a time, she was chairman of the board, and under her leadership, the city selected its first African American superintendent of schools. After a decade of working with the board of education, Clement decided to resign, and she became a county commissioner. Clement believes that her various civic roles have allowed her to accomplish some of the social change she desired, though she sees more that needs to occur. At the end of the interview, Clement explains how she tries to balance her concerns for social justice, her interest in environmental issues and her pragmatic recognition that new building in Durham is inevitable. After this interview was completed, Clement remained politically active and even co-chaired the successful gubernatorial campaigns of Democrat James Hunt in Durham County in 1980 and 1984.
Josephine Dobbs Clement talks about her various civic roles, including her activity as a member of the League of Women Voters, the Durham City-County Charter Commission, the Board of Education, and the Board of County Commissioners. She also discusses her efforts on behalf of social justice and her views on race, gender, and environmental issues.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Kathy Nasstrom for the Southern Oral History Program interviewing
Josephine Clement on July 13, 1989 about the civil rights era in North
Carolina.
I'd be glad to, Kathy, because civil rights was not known by that name
either publicly or in my family, but it was a way of life for us. It was
the way my parents taught us, and my father in later years became known
as a great civil rights worker, although they were not calling them that
in that day. But we had rather strict rules in my family that you never
accepted segregation if you could possibly get around it. For instance,
if you had to take a segregated streetcar to go to school, then that
would be a sacrifice worth making, to get your education. And so you sat
on the back of a streetcar and went to school. But if it were a matter
of going to a theater for pleasure, and you had to go in the back door
or the side door, then that was no pleasure, and so we were never
permitted to accept conditions like that. I can remember, growing up,
being very afraid and very shaky but still standing up for my rights at
various times. I can remember my father, when we were young, refusing to
be sent to the back of a department store, and saying, "Well,
we won't buy anything here," and leaving. Finally, eventually
you had to buy someplace but you would have made your point. The same at
gas stations when heDred Scott
decision, also the decision of 1896 which established the separate but
equal. Of course, at that time we were trying to get equal though
separate. That was the concept that had not yet been struck down. These
are the concepts and the strategies that I grew up with. And doing that,
or standing up for myself, or not permitting myself to be called by my
first name—and it's ironic that now everybody uses first
names—or being mistreated in any way that I thought we were
mistreated, was a way of life. We just did not accept this kind of
thing. My sister Mattiwilda [Dobbs], who was the second black woman to
sing at the Metropolitan Opera Company, established the policy of never
singing before a segregated audience. Of course, she ended up singing
mostly in Europe.
I'm curious too, because I know from reading the other interview with you, the interview that Walter Weare did, that much of this had to do with being in a relatively large city.
Exactly, that's true.
And then you came to Durham, which I think was in 1946. Is that right?
Yes.
A much smaller town, but with a very distinctive black community also.
This is true.
Could you describe, if you recall, your perceptions of Durham at that point, coming here, and if you could compare it to Atlanta?
Durham was, and still is, the smallest place I've ever lived in. It took
some getting used to when I did come here. However, Durham had the
peculiar value of offering a well-knit, well-secured, strong, black
middle-class community. When my husband and I came to Durham, we did not
come as strangers, although I was actually. My husband's father had
worked with North Carolina Mutual, which was even a stronger factor in
the time of segregation than it is now that people live everywhere and
work everywhere. That and North Carolina Central [University] were the
two leading places of employment for middle-class blacks, other than the
tobacco factories. So he had grown up in the company. His father went to
work for the company in 1906, so he was well-known. When we came, we
were welcomed immediately. There was a very warm sense of hospitality
here and
I think it's sort of both/and.
Yes, it's dubious.
I'm thinking too of those years when you first moved to Durham. I mentioned earlier my interest in documenting any civil rights related activities, progress towards integration, in the years before 1960. You had several young children, but I'm going to guess you were quite active in a variety of organizations.
I was, but mostly organizations that centered around the children. We had
six children in all and following them
We were talking earlier about your involvement with the League of Women Voters and the YWCA. Do you recall what year it was that you became involved in those organizations?
Well, actually I had a relationship with the YWCA as soon as I came here.
I had been a Girl Reserve in Atlanta at the Phyllis Wheatley. My mother
had been president of the Phyllis Wheatley, and she was always giving
pieces of furnishings or what not that we didn't need. I remember she
gave an old Victrola to the "Y" which would be
collector's item now
As for the League of Women Voters, I did not know as much about a national directive, although what I remember fits in with such. But since I was already active in the black branch of the YWCA, I knew about that. But evidently the League of Women Voters actively solicited black women in their membership. Don't even remember exactly who mentioned it to me, but I did join. Because here again, I felt deep down inside of me if this organization is going to integrate and to open up, I should be a part of it and help to open the door for others. At that time it was the sense of the black community that integration was the panacea for all ills. We'd grown up that way. If you got your education and behaved yourself and so forth, everything was going to be all-right. Unfortunately, we have learned better and are a little bit disillusioned, and the young people have shown us that it's much more complex than this. But anyhow, I still believe that we ought to be a part of everything that's going, so that was why I went into the League of Women Voters.
I imagine that we could, looking through records, establish these dates,
but my own sense is that the directive for integration from the National
League of Women Voters came in the
Not the exact date, but I would certainly concur with the late fifties.
I ask that because I was interested in placing it in context of before or
after the Brown decision. Not that they're about the
same thing but in terms of the climate, the anticipation of change if
there was such a thing.
I think that was very much a part of the same thing. Here was a concept
that's being talked about and actually expressed by the Supreme Court.
As I just mentioned, the Supreme Court in 1857 with the Dred Scott and then 1897 with Plessy v.
Ferguson which established separate but equal, and now in 1954,
although it was an educational decision, it struck down the concept of
segregation. So we were beginning to get the first opening up of this
sort of thing. It's very much in keeping with the League of Women
Voters, I would think, to do a thing like this, because you can't fight
for one segment or one part of a person and not for equal rights for
all. This is how I think I came to the women's movement because I had
been brought up to fight for the rights of black people and
Negroes—colored as we were called then. And I realized that I
couldn't divide myself up. I am not only black, I am a black female, and
it goes together. I couldn't go out and fight the white community and
come in and fight the black men, any human being for whatever reason, I think has to be
dealt with. We must have equal human rights for all people.
That commitment that you just mentioned now, was that something that became more consciously formulated as a result of the women's movement, or would you say it was something that you took into the women's movement?
I think in all cases like that, there's always something inside of us that is awaiting some spark, so to speak. And when things happen in the larger community, we respond to those things that we believe, even though unspoken, and we may not have actually dealt with it. So we come to that point that we select those things that really are in keeping with what we believe deep down.
More the idea, then, that it struck a chord of something you'd always known?
This is true. And it also came, societal changes—I think it
was Erik Erikson who writes in Identity about your own
personal crisis points, in the self-identity, and the societal crisis
periods, and the way the two coincide that is often very interesting. As
I came to mid-life—and I think the menopause is a very
important crisis period for women, that's why the whole fight for
reproductive control and freedom is so important, I think it's
deep-seated—as I came to that societal period and these other
things in my personal development, the two just coincided.
I'm just thinking we covered a lot of years right in those phrases.
As I remember, the transition in the League of Women Voters was more smooth than that in the YWCA; the YWCA is still having difficulties. In fact there's an article in the paper this morning. I went last week with the director of the YWCA to talk to the United Fund asking for an appeal because the United Fund had decided not to fund them anymore. But the YWCA has had more difficulties, and I don't know exactly why this is. The League of Women Voters has remained a white organization. I went to a meeting last winter in which they asked all the elected women officials from the city and the county to come and talk about some issues. We entered in and there were only one or two black women there. Whereas, on the other hand, the YWCA has become almost a black women's organization, beginning with the integration in the late fifties. I remember I came off of that board in 1960, because my youngest child was born. The white women were leaving, quietly—and this seems to be the style of Durham—not confrontationally, but just quietly to slip away. That support began to fall away. Then there have been some other problems with the "Y" within the women's movement. One group pulled out from the YWCA and took programs and volunteers and people and so forth, and that hurt bad. And then we got one or two bad executive directors. So the YWCA is in trouble right now, but the League is flourishing.
Do you have a sense of why those two organizations evolved in that way—personnel issues or the nature of the organization?
Well, it might be—and I certainly don't know, but I'm just
speculating now—it might be that the YWCA was already
segregated. You had a black "Y" movement and a white
"Y" movement, and you had to put them together. The
League of Women Voters was white all the way. It never had any black
component. So they began to bring black women in, but they still were in
control of the organization. I don't know that they have such a strong
black membership now because of their cultural differences. Generally,
when you find organizations like that, their agenda does not speak to
the issues of black women. It's a middle-class organization. The YWCA on
the other hand, had a strong black component, so when you tried to
integrate these . . . I think the truth of the matter is, that we are
learning that white people have not accepted integration. If you will
look at what has happened, you will find that all the integrating flows
in one direction, from black to white. We move into white neighborhoods;
we go to white schools; we join white organizations. White people never
come to the black community. They don't come a lot where we ever feel
them, not in large numbers, to the black schools, the black
organizations, or the black neighborhoods. It just doesn't work that
way. So the onus of integration has fallen on black people. If you move
forward and integrate you find yourself giving up the culture that you
were reared in, the friends that you had, the people, even
It's interesting too that you just said "education." The thought in my mind was, when I look at the issue now of the Durham county schools and the Durham city schools, there's the same . . .
That epitomizes the whole situation.
This might be a good time to get into your work on the school boards and those issues, because it seems as though that's really where a big chunk of your recent life has been spent. That's what you've chosen to put your time and your energy into.
Yes.
And if I can, I would like to have you talk, before we get into your work
on the school board, about what actually is a
Let me say that that period was one in which my husband was more active
than I was, the period of the sixties. I had a child in '57, I had a
child in '60. My mother came to live with me in '61. So that period,
leading up to the actual integration, although it was following the Brown decision, was one in which I was very much kept
at home. My husband, however, served as chairman of the Education
Committee for the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People. It is
composed of many subcommittees. Most people hear about the political
subcommittee to the exclusion of others. But during that time that was a
very active [education] committee because the suits that were being
instituted were for equalization, they were not against segregation. We
had not caught up with that in suits that had already been filed, even
though the Supreme Court had spoken. It does take some time for things
to filter down that way. So they had suits trying to get schools opened
up, trying to get facilities in the black schools which they had in the
white schools. They couldn't get into the white schools. They had to get
a court order to get a photographer in to take pictures of some of these
things to document it that way. So that was a very important period in
there. We always were part of any groupwoman, black or white, to serve as chairman. In
fact they've never had a woman since, but they've just had two chairmen
since. You know, as I look back on it, I think of the old saying,
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
When we began to search for a replacement to Mr. Hannon who had been a
superintendent for something like 27 years, Dr. Speigner and I, who was
the other black member on the board—they had a black man on
the board for several years—we decided to search for some
black applicants. I didn't even know they had black superintendents but
we were able to find two or three and had them apply. As I look back on
it now, city didn't want it. They didn't want the county
to come in. Now that has come reversed, the county doesn't want it.
Well, we got it done and we paired these schools in all of the sections,
which was an artificial stilted sort of thing to do. We had to get a
computer programmer to do these runs for us, to fit into the parameters,
to get so many white children into each school. Was not the best way to
do
And, just to clarify, this was 1975?
1975, exactly. We went from a board of six, four of whom were white and two were black—that's how he came in—and a white superintendent that he was working under to succeed. We went to a board of five, four of whom were black. See, the blacks took over in the election. I don't know whether it was because white people had not caught up with the fact that the city board was going to be elected, just not give themselves up to it, or black people were so anxious to get in that we moved ahead. But we did sweep the elections and got four blacks in and one white. So that was a lot to come into a new situation and have your whole school structure changed and a whole school board changed.
All in one election, too.
That's right, absolutely. So I thought we could work together. But,
anyhow, we soon found out that it got worse instead of better and there
was no alternative but to let him go. We were giving our time, we didn't
earn any money. We got the princely sum of 25 dollars per meeting, not
to exceed three meetings per month, usually we had two, but we could
have a third
We began the interviews, we narrowed it down to five people to invite for
interviews. They came. We did the first, the second, the third, and the
fourth, and there was no great feeling that arose from the Board about
anybody. The fifth person that we introduced was Dr. Cleveland Hammonds.
His resume didn't look that much better than anybody else's. We had our
interview with him which was about three hours. And as I sat
For the answer.
They were learning too. This man, and this is what was so
significant—because he was the one white on the Board and a
very conservative man and he had fought the Board about
Would you take a minute and describe—because I'm struck by that scene that you just outlined—it must have been something in the way that he came across . . .
It was.
Could you describe what qualities you felt at that time?
He's very quiet and unassuming, low-key, so that you don't expect very
much. But when he started talking his answers were right. Every answer
was right. You just couldn't believe that he was what you wanted to
hear. We had begun to go down terribly from a high prestige system when
it was a white—when we had white and black. Both systems were
higher prestige. Hillside was one of the outstanding black high schools
in the nation. Kids left here and went to Ivy League colleges and so
forth. The same with Durham High. It was one of the great systems in
this state. It was known. So here, now, we had gone down in prestige,
our scores are falling, discipline is a problem, people are afraid to go
into the classroom. I'll give you an example. We had a problem with vans
parking in front of the high school, wildly painted, all kinds of scenes
on the outside. Of course, you couldn't prove anything, but you'd be
Who is in control?
Exactly. They move into the vacuum. And it was true. I understood. There
was some pretty bad situations going on and I didn't deny this. But
resolving the situation and getting out of it was something else. I told
everybody, I said, I'm not willing to accept the fact that Durham High
School has to go down the drain simply because it's become black. We can
keep the high standards that we had. In fact, I'm not going to let this
happen. Well, we eventually worked it out. We promoted this principal to
a position in central office. And he came with his lawyer when we first
started talking, and that sort of thing. But we finally sold him on it.
I think he was getting sicker by this time because he had only been on
that job about two or three months when he collapsed and became ill and
eventually died. We were looking for somebody to do these overt things,
things that the public was looking at as well as bringing up academics.
These were the things that you would normally look for in a
superintendent. In his own quiet, reassuring manner, he [Dr. Hammonds]
assured us that he could take care of these things. He could handle it.
He had been cited by the Michigan legislature for doing these things. He
had a belief in black children that they could learn, that they should
learn, that there should be discipline and order, that no learning can
take place before you establish discipline and order. These were the
things that we all wanted. He just spoke every answer, as I said, flowed
out of him. You just believed him. We hadn't heard this before from any
of the candidates. He turned out to be as good as his word. The school
hadn't opened before he began to get those yards
Oh, right.
You know the whole state is changing. It's reflected itself here. The general election is now getting to be as important as the Democratic primary. You're running all year, for a two year term.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
This is Kathy Nasstrom interviewing Josephine Clement, a second
interview, on August 3rd, 1989. We're going to finish up with issues
when you were serving, as you currently are, on the Board of County
Commissioners for Durham County. I'd like to pick up from where you left
off last time.
Yes, Kathy, there has been a definite change, a very gradual but almost
an inescapable change in that during my ten years on the Board of
Education I had one point of view. I was very, I guess I was almost
chauvinistic about the city system. Now as a county commissioner I have
a broader view, a different perspective. We see the two systems as being
a unit as far as funding is concerned. The county is the funding agent
for both city systems although their own elected boards are the policy
makers. From that point of view I began to see the problems of financial
support. Children are the same throughout the county. They have needs,
they must have an opportunity to develop themselves to the best of their
capabilities, so that they can take their places as responsible and
productive citizens. And so my view has broadened a bit, well, I'll say
a lot. For instance, in the matter of funding we know that the
I'm curious too about the merger task force. And I have to say that I haven't been able to figure out when that group began meeting. Was it in late '87?
No. Let's see. It began in '88, about May, following the budget planning
sessions of the Board of County Commissioners. Our fiscal year ends June
30th. At the beginning of the planning session, say about March or
April, when we were setting goals to decide what we wanted to do and
where we wanted to be, so as to direct us and the expenditure of funds,
it was found that education was a top priority for all the
Commissioners. We were in total agreement that we needed the best
educational system that we could provide. Then the discussion turned to
whether we were actually getting the most from our money in the present
set-up. We were interested in the delivery of educational services in
the most cost effective manner. So that of course led to the problem of
the two districts, one very large and one very small, and whether this
indeed was an effective method of delivering educational services across
the county. From that the chairman, William Bell, appointed this
committee—or we all did, but he broached the
idea—and we came up with forty-one organizations, they
applied for places on the Task Force, and we tried to get a broad
spectrum of the community, geographically and in point of view of
interests and so forth. From this the task force was set up.
Right. In your watching the task force deliberations and that sort of thing, that your position of the issue changed, or was it actually prior to this, say in your first couple of years on the Board.
It changed gradually as I got into the funding. Of course as a school board member you go to the Board of County Commissioners asking for money and you begin to—you understand something about the funding mechanism. But your point of view as a county commissioner is totally financial and also it's looking at the county as a whole rather than at the city school district. If you say, this is your district, then that's what you're going to concern yourself with, of course. As a county commissioner we are elected by the total county population, we don't even have districts, we're at large. So you have to broaden your horizon to look at the whole county.
In terms of your original position in favor of keeping the schools separate, and am I right in saying that you would have shared with many, as I understand in the black community, including people from the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, their sense that it was important to retain control of the schools, the community influence. That you, let's say living in this neighborhood, would know what was going on with the school children in your area, know those teachers, those issues about being in contact on a regular basis?
No, I didn't convey my opinion. It was a sort of an unspoken, shared
belief. You have a shared system of values in a community and that
existed. And I have not shared this with anybody else. This is really
not for the public, because I have not totally come down on either side
of the merger issue and I'm trying to keep an open mind, I'm trying to
hear both sides of it.
In the long run.
In the long run. Sure it is.
Along the lines of your—and maybe it's best to say evolving position, because you haven't come down firmly—is there a way . . . I suppose the question would be, do you have a vision, how the merger could take place, in a way that would satisfy your concerns and then what would that be?
At present I am concerned that every child in Durham receive an
opportunity, an equitable opportunity. I look at foreign countries, even
the communist countries, seem to be ahead of us in this aspect. They
recognize their most precious resource is the young people. They
recognize that education is important, an enlightened populace is very
important, and in this society, I think it's more important in a
democratic society. We perhaps have bent over backwards in allowing
people free choice in some areas. In other areas now we're going to pull
in from free choice.
So the education issues lead for you directly into the job issues?
Oh, I think so. There was a time that you could work if you were strong
and willing. I remember when we came to Durham, Pettigrew Street,
Pettigrew and Corcoran was the corner
Have you found, then, in your now I guess about three years or four on the Board of County Commissioners . . .
Five. It's five this month. I started in '84.
I guess I was thinking it was '86, but then you were appointed . . .
Well, we run every two years. The election was that year. I was appointed in August, but the term's '84, '86, and '88. Those are the three terms. I'm in the third term now.
Have you found that that's been a vehicle through which you've been able to work on the concerns that you have? Has it been effective in that sense for you and what you're hoping to accomplish?
Yes, it's been fairly satisfying in that respect. Not totally of course,
but I've been able to do some of the things I've wanted to do. First of
all, I am continuing my interest in education because we do fund
education in the county, and also because I am the liaison person on the
Board of County Commissioners to the two school systems, so that I feel
that I am still involved in that. Other things that we have done, have
been perhaps in the area of employment. Here again, this is very
important. I think everybody should have the opportunity to work.
Whatever that society demands of a worker, we should train the person
for that so they can work. Our system somehow has gotten off-track so
that we don't encourage people to work and to prepare for work. Our
welfare system is skewed to a great extent. So many people who have
slipped between the cracks and what not. One of the things that we've
been able to do is to help the racial imbalance in employment. We are an
affirmative and equal opportunity employer. When we came
there—well, let me say that we came in August, but the
current manager was retiring as of that term, December we had to hire a
new manager—up until that time all of the people in
administrative positions were white men and all of the people in staff
positions were white women. That's the way it was. I've very happy to
say we have a much better mix. We have a good mix of administrative
people who
Along those lines, because I have read about the ordinance for
encouraging minorities in business, I came across
Yes.
And I take it that was more to study issues?
Right.
But if you'd say a little about that?
That is really not, I'm not sure it has worked out as well as we hoped,
but it's in place and that is very important. I made that motion also
for the establishment of a women's commission. There is a state
commission, North Carolina commission, and then each county is supposed
to have one to determine the needs of women in that particular area, to
make a needs assessment and to make recommendations to the County Board
of Commissioners as to what they can do to help the plight of women. In
essence I think that is about—it's a little nebulous there.
They are meeting regularly, they've not done an awful lot, but they are
organized and in place. They've had some problems getting started.
They've had their own internal problems, but I still have hopes that
it's going to function, perhaps even more than it's doing now. They do
sort of ceremonial things. It's amazing, the people you find who are
against these things. You'll find black people who find some arguments
against rights for black people, you'll find women who are against
progress for women—we don't need any or what not. We've had a
lot of that to overcome. The younger women on the whole, however, are
very aggressive. They're ready to move
Will the commission in the end come up with a set of recommendations?
They're supposed to. This is what they're supposed to do. For instance, I'll just use the example of battered women. Suppose there are no facilities in the county for that. They're supposed to keep up with the needs in the county and make recommendations to us. They've not really come up with very much along that line. Their own internal organization seems to have taken most of their time and their energy. But that is exactly what they're supposed to do.
So then it's hard to say at this point what will tangibly come out of . . .
Right. I have hopes though.
Good. Because I've found bits and pieces, in terms of references, during my research, but then it sort of disappears from the . . .
I think that's why. They're not doing very much now. During women's history month, they had a program and they gave an award to an outstanding woman. As I said, they were mostly ceremonial things. This is important too, because there is a lot of hidden resistance to this sort of thing.
On a more general level, then, I'd like you to talk about any other
issues that have been important to you in your time on the County
Commissioners Board.
Right. Education, minorities—and that means in this area mostly blacks, we don't have a lot of other minorities—and women. Those are my primary concerns. But I think also there's another large area and that is one of what you might call the humane approach to ordinary problems that I think you find more coming from women than men. Most boards that we've had in the past have been comprised of white males, men from the business community, who are very oriented toward business and the business ledger. Do the books balance and the revenue and this sort of thing. In the last fifteen to twenty years we've a slow trickle of women and people who are not entirely oriented that way. I certainly don't mean to imply that we don't need business people. We do, because running any governmental agency is b