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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 G-0056-1, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Modjeska Simkins was born into a prosperous African American family in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1899. Simkins begins the interview by briefly describing her family background and her upbringing. The daughter of an educated African American woman and an accomplished bricklayer whose birth was the product of an interracial relationship during Reconstruction, Simkins describes growing up on a sizable farm and attending private school at Benedict College, where she completed her elementary, secondary, and collegiate education. In describing her childhood, Simkins focuses on describing what she calls her lack of "color consciousness" in relationship to her own racial heritage and her education. In addition, she emphasizes the impact of her parents' "fearlessness" and their determination to help those less fortunate. Simkins cites their example as particularly influential in her own decision to later become involved in the South Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation and similar organizations, including the NAACP and the Southern Negro Youth Conference. In the second interview in this series of two (G-0056-2), Simkins describes her involvement in various organizations in much more detail; however, here she focuses more specifically on her involvement in the Interracial Commission, especially during its formative years in the 1920s and its evolution into the 1930s and 1940s. In so doing, she addresses the work of the Interracial Commission in confronting segregation and lynching. Of particular interest to researchers is her discussion of the roles of women in leadership positions within social justice movements during the 1920s and her effort to differentiate between the unique capabilities that southern social hierarchies afforded African American women and white women. Finally, Simkins offers a number of illuminating anecdotes regarding racial tension throughout the interview.
Modjeska Simkins describes growing up in a prosperous African American family, going to school, and her thoughts on "color consciousness" during her childhood in Columbia, South Carolina. In addition, she discusses her involvement in the South Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation and other race organizations beginning in the 1920s, her thoughts on women's unique capabilities as leaders of social justice movements, and the nature of racial tension in the South.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
I'll tell you generally what I am doing and then what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm director of the Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina. And we are collecting interviews with people, southerners involved in labor struggles, politics and women who were involved in various things, especially in the twenties and thirties. Secondly, I have been working on a study of Jesse Daniel Ames and the women's campaign against lynching. And as a part of that, I did some work on the very beginning of interracial cooperation between black and white women in the old Interracial Commission. And so, what I wanted to do … if I had time, I would like to get an overview of your whole life, some of the major things you have been involved in. But I would like to perhaps concentrate on your experiences and perceptions of the Interracial Commission in South Carolina. Does that sound o.k. to you?
Yes, well… my reaction to the Interracial Commission as such in South
Carolina
Now, Alice Spearman Wright, that you met down here, she exemplified the bull in the china closet type. She never took back water about anything. And she and I have gone to meetings. Thirty years ago, she went over to Russia and worked in the factories and things like that, to get a look-see about the thing.
Now, when did you first know her?
Oh, I've known her since the 1920's, I guess.
Before we go on with this, I would like to kind of start at the beginning and ask you about your own background, where you grew up, what your parents did and how you got to be the kind of person that you are?
Well, my parents were fearless people. That's how I got the way I am.
Where were you born, Columbia, South Carolina?
Yes.
When were you born?
1899, I'll be 75 in December.
What did your parents do?
My mother was a teacher before I was born and my father was a brick-layer who did a good deal of contract work, so that our family was always what you might call above the average, economically. My mother taught before I was born, but after she started having children and until the baby child got to where she was six or seven years old, she didn't teach or work away from home at all. And after that, she went back into teaching.
Had she gone to college?
No, in those days, you didn't have to go to college to have to teach in any school, for that matter, black or white. But she finished the high school of that time, which in those days, they did have exceptional teachers. Even in the high schools. You see, a number of the black teachers … and this is something that the average person doesn't always realize, that a number of the black teachers were far better prepared, and I don't mean my mother, now, because she never went out of state to school, but she was taught by exceptional people, in those days when blacks could not go to the public colleges supported by the state, they had to go out of the state and so, many of them went to superior colleges and universities. So, many of the black teachers, even now, many of them are superior to the whites, a number of whites, because in those days, they went to the University of Ohio and the City College of New York and Oberlin and Chicago University, Columbia University. And they came back well prepared, far superior to a number of the white teachers who were getting twice as much pay as they were getting.
Did your mother teach high school?
No, she taught grade school. At that time, her school went to
You had brothers and sisters?
Yes, there were eight of us. There are four of us still living. One of my brothers is a brick-layer, he took over the work from my father, and I have a sister who married a young man who was, for a long time, on the faculty of the University of Michigan. He's a bacteriologist. He worked for years with Dr. Hahn, who is a biologist up there, when they started this VD fight, you know, and they were studying that type of thing. And he is now working with the Catholic … they are Catholics … and he has some job with some Catholic organization up there. He received his doctorate in public health at the University of Wisconsin and then came down to the University of Michigan and got his doctorate, a doctorate of bacteriology and worked there in the department at Michigan for years. I lost a sister in '67, she died of cancer and she was quite a fighter in the civil rights movement. She taught in the Columbia schools until the year before her death. And she brought the suit that opened the University of South Carolina for blacks.
What was her name?
Her name was Rebecca
That's the … what is the name of that?
Victory. So, that's where I've been until now. And I work everyday and I got off today and will be off Monday and then Tuesday I go up to Charlotte for something, and then I will get back on the rat race.
You said that your parents were fearless people?
Yes.
How did that express itself as you were growing up. What kinds of things were they involved in?
They weren't involved in movements, because movements weren't then as they are now.
What about during Reconstruction?
No, they weren't old enough for that. You see, my father was born in 1870 and my mother was born in 1875.
What about their parents?
They were slaves. My father's parents and my mother's parents were slaves. They were my grandparents, they were all slaves.
Did you know them?
I knew my great-grandmother on my father's side and my grandmother on my father's side. My mother's parents died when I was an infant.
Were you influenced by them at all?
By who, my grandparents?
Yes.
No, my great-grandmother, I would say that she was a fearless old sister. In that period, there were certain things … you didn't talk back to white folks, you know. And nobody was supposed to call a white man a liar, or to say that he lied. And if a black person said that a white man lied, he was whipped. My old great-grandmother, although she was a slave, she didn't fear anybody. That was my father's grandmother and I remember her quite well. And she had a daughter, who I remember, and who helped to found one of the colleges in South Carolina, Morris College. And then my mother's sisters, both of them were professional women, they were employed as teachers, too. One of them married one of the first black physicians that came into the state, and the other one died just about five or six years ago.
How did your parents fearlessness get impressed upon you?
Well, there were just certain things … I'm trying to remember, and I wish that I could remember when I first became conscious of the fact that I was black and supposed to be different so far as color went.
You can't remember that?
No, I can't. I've often wished that I could remember that, because my
mother … well, in the first place, my father was a mulatto. After
freedom, his mother worked as a nursemaid in a white home there in
Columbia. And she became pregnant by the father of this family and my
father was a result of that union. And he never, although he should
have, he never fully forgave his mother for that. The result was that my
mother, who was the daughter-in-law, naturally, of his mother, she
understood her better and my grandmother was devoted to my mother. My
father never was abusive to her,
That's incredible. How did you know your grandfather? What kind of contact did you have with him?
He would come to our home.
He would come to your home?
Yes, and he …
How did your father feel about him?
Well, he didn't seem to … I don't remember him coming to the home while
my father was there, although there was no reason why he shouldn't. He
didn't slip in. You see, I told you that my father was a birck-layer
that did a lot of contract work, and when the industrial revolution
started in the South, as George was talking about on the picture
tonight, he would travel to help build mills and jails all through South
Carolina and Alabama and Mississippi, whenever these cotton mills were
coming up. After the cotton revolution came on, you see. So, he was away
from home a good bit. But I do know that when my brother was born, the
one that I was telling you is a physician, he was very proud. I don't
know whether he was proud of the first three ones, the three first were
girls, but I do know that he was very proud of this boy. I remember one
day that he was at home and he had my brother on his lap and my mother's
name was Rachel … I don't know whether you know it or not, but older
people used to, if a baby had a well rounded, shaped head, they used to
say, "He's a fine child." And so, he looked at this baby and kind of
rubbed his hand over his head and said, "Rachel, this boy has got a good
head on him, he is going to make you proud someday." Of course, all of
my mother's children were very fine, healthy specimens. Especially for
the age in which they came up. Well, like I say, we were economically
above
He has a son named Walter there in Columbia now. And there is Colin, who I mentioned, he has a son who could pass for a twin of my sister, who is in Michigan. I mean, if you see them sitting together, you would declare that they are brother and sister. She has very fine, chiseled features. In fact, I would say that she is just a beautiful woman.
So, he didn't resent his father as much as he did his mother?
I never heard him … now, here is what he resented his mother more for: this old man had a daughter by another colored woman in Columbia … I don't think there were any more … and she, he gave money to educate both of these children. My father's mother, she was one of these church sisters, you know, one of those who believe everything the preacher says and gives everything to them, well, she was like that. So, the daughter of this other woman, who I called Aunt Madeline, she went to high school, she became a very fine typist and was at one time a court stenographer in Jacksonville. And she married a pharmacist in Jacksonville, Florida. Now, the money he gave … because he wanted my father to be educated, my grandmother used it in the church and gave him away to a white family in the lower part of the county … not gave him away, but let him stay with them, virtually gave him away. These people, by the name of Lightses, and another family named Patterson, until he was a good-sized boy, he stayed with them. And he never got through the third grade. So, that was really the root of the resentment.
And they took him in for what reason? Did he work for them?
Yes, he worked for them, but it wasn't peonage or anything like that.
They were very kind to him. And now, how that connection was made, I
don't know. But I do know that his father gave the money for him to be
educated just like he gave for this girl by this other woman. I know
that. And I think
What school?
We went to Benedict. In that day, they had from the colleges on down through the primary grades.
That is a Catholic … are you Catholic?
No, I'm not Catholic. I'm not much of anything.
Were your parents Catholic?
No, my parents were Baptist. And all the children started off as
Baptists. But these two went into the Catholic faith. I don't know why,
the first one, the one that died of cancer, she had a good friend who
was Catholic and she was finally proselyted into the Catholic church.
The other lost a child, she came down to have these babies, she had twin
babies, and one of them burned to death and the husband, Albert, was in
Ann Arbor and she came down here with us to have the children. And
Albert wasn't particularly interested in any church, but when this child
died, he was up in Ann Arbor alone on his job and we were to go up there
in about a month, because I was to ride up with them and take the
children, my mother and I. And the only person connected with a church
that went to see him was a Catholic priest. And my sister said that it
didn't concern her what kind of a church that he joined and naturally,
he became
Was your father interested in educating you children?
Oh, yes. All of us finished high school. Well, one infant, the one next to me, died in infancy. And the next one finished college and was teaching in city schools and she died here of a ruptured appendix, peritonitis. And then, my two brothers … I had another brother that died and then my sister that died of cancer not long ago. But all of us finished college except my second brother.
You all finished college?
Yes.
Where did you go to college?
I went to college at Benedict and then took additional work at Michigan and Columbia. And my sister finished at S. C. State college and my brother finished at Benedict and then went to medical school. He went to Rochester one year and then finished at Meharry.
When did you graduate?
1921. That's when I got my A.B. degree. Then I taught at Benedict for a
year and then I went into the city schools and that's when I taught
mathematics for a number of years. Until I married and then they didn't
let married teachers teach in the city schools at that time. So, then, I
came out of that and I went to work with the state tuberculosis
association and they sent me off to study at the University of Michigan
and to Michigan State at Ypsilanti and so, I took work up there until
'42 and before '56, I was just freelance, getting people's business and
all the federal cases for transportation and teachers' salaries against
the whites, all of those were
What was the first thing that you got involved in?
I don't remember.
When did you first get involved in the Interracial Commission?
It must have been in the mid-twenties.
Do you remember the first meeting, or how you heard about it?
Somebody must have just invited me to a meeting, I guess. I don't know.
But my mother and father were always interested in helping people. They
were concerned when people's … we didn't call it "rights" then, but they
were concerned when somebody was taken advantage of. And my mother was
very sensitive to people's problems. I know that we would work in the
fields, we had to work in the fields because that's where we made …
although my father made good money, we had to work in the fields because
we had to learn how to work, he said. And so, very often we would leave
the fields and my mother would say, "Well, we'll have to go and see Mrs.
So-and-So, she is sick." And we have to go over there and see her and
then go see this or that person. I can remember those sick rooms, you
know, they didn't have electricity, no electric fans and windows were
made of wood. They didn't have any way to cool the people. They would
have a sheet wrung out of water and hang it up over the bed and as that
sheet would dry, it would cool them. And then she would say, "You go out
there and get some leaves off that peach tree and beat them up so I can
put them on Sister So-and-So's head," and that type of thing. And the
men in the rural area in those days didn't think that a woman got
through the week unless she got a whipping and so my mother anointed
many of them in the back where they were whipped and all that type of
thing. And then she was fearless when it came to any situation. My
father kept very good guns
What did your father say about the guns? You knew what they were for?
Well, he hunted a good bit. He never had a pistol, but he had a Winchester rifle, I think what they called a Sixteen Shooter, I know that it had a lot of cartridges in it. Then, he had a shotgun, a very fine one.
Did he use them to protect your mother, to protect you all from being …
No, that was never said. That's what it was for if necessary. Because the night that that mob came to the house in Arkansas, one of them eventually was shot. I was quite a little girl, but I remember it just as though it happened last night. And when that one was struck, the crowd dispersed immediately. You don't have to hit but one of the fellows in a mob.
He was a brick-layer in Arkansas, a foreman?
Yeah, he was working with a company out of Nashville. And
He shot into the crowd and …
Yes, he shot into the crowd. He was inside the house but he was behind a wall, just like I would be behind that wall right there and this is the front door. And so, he was behind and he pushed the gun over this way, and when some guy shot into the house, he just leaned over and put his gun this way and shot out through that hole, and that's where he struck one.
When did that happen? Do you know?
What year?
Yes.
Let's see … my brother was born in 1905, I guess it was.
And the sheriff didn't come for him?
No. They threw a guard around the house and they put protection for him
on the job. You see, this company out of Nashville was one of the most
outstanding construction firms of that day1 and they were determined that they weren't going to let these
people, what they called "rednecks," do what they did. So, they put a
guard around him on the building and they put guards around our house.
The house was in a beautiful grove. I remember them telling my mother
that she needn't worry, she would be protected. It was in this grove,
and they had these men on horses that rode around all day long. And so,
they said, "If you don't see us, we will be whistling and you will know
that we are here," that was night, you know. And so, my father sent us
back to South Carolina. I awoke one night, she had these two or three
big trunks that
So, you had a sense of what kind of conditions people worked under, that some were worse off than you were?
Yes. All of my early teaching was done by Yankee teachers. A number of
them came down right after Reconstruction and on up until about the
twenties, they came down to educate the freedmen, you know, the freed
slaves. And so, all of my teachers, I think that was one reason why I
had never felt color. Now, naturally, when you are talking, you have to
express it, you know. Because that is the only way in this type of
society that we have to say something about black or white. But now,
within me, I don't have that consciousness of color, because I didn't
have it in my home and I didn't have it at the school, you see? And so,
therefore, I have always been interested in the disadvantaged, no matter
what their color was. Now, there was a program, they called it "Open
Mike" at home, where people could call in and comment, you know? So, the
question was asked me one night when I was on it … I told them that I
was a crossbreed. So, then they asked me, "If you are a crossbreed, then
what are you?" I guess that they thought I would say something about
Indian being in me. I told them that I was part French, which was a lie.
But anyway, some while afterwards, I was on the program a particular
night, so when I came out of the studio, the manager of the station
said, "There is somebody here who wants to talk to you." And I went
there and it was a woman. And she said, "You said that you were a
crossbreed and I have seen you on the t.v.," … I must have looked a lot
I want to know a little more about the Interracial Commission. Who else was involved in the Interracial Commission in those early days?
Well, there was a Mr. Cuppleman, who was an attorney in Columbia and a man by the name of R. Beverley Herbert. He was out of Virginia, but he emigrated to South Carolina some years back. And there was a spinster by the name of Miss Minahan, who always … she had good intentions but she was one of these people that when she is talking to you, she is looking above you, you know and if you got to be on a certain point where it looked like you were going to apply some pressure, she was quick to turn that …
How many people were involved?
Oh, well, there were at least twenty or thirty and about half and half.
Half black and half white?
Yes. I can't remember them all now. There were some school people, you
know, college professors and preachers and white lawyers and professors
at the University of South Carolina. It was mostly a professional thing,
they weren't doing like they said down there today, pringing in the
Was there a separate women's committee?
No. They all worked together.
How many women in proportion to men were there?
I guess that there were about one-third that were women. At least that.
Well, how did it operate? They met once …
They met once a month and they had an agenda.
Where did you meet?
They met at … well, at one time we met at what they called a USO. Of course, that was after the second World War and they would meet in schoolrooms.
Black schools?
Yes. For awhile, I know that we met in the lecture room of the colored wing of the hospital.
Now, were you involved all the way through the twenties, the thirties, on up until after World War II, with the Interracial Commission?
Yes, you see, after the Southern Regional was organized, it eventually wove itself into the Southern Regional. But I was one of the founders of Southern Regional, you see.
So, you were in on it the whole time.
Then, I became a little disillusioned at one time with Southern Regional,
because it had this kind of a reticence that I had noticed in the
Interracial Commission. I don't know why some of those people were like
that, except that they hadn't been close to … well, I guess that very
few blacks had had the experience that I had encountered, with the
parents that I had. And
Yes.
But anyway, I became a little disillusioned with the Southern Regional, because the Southern Conference for Human Welfare had the more dynamic and fearless beginning. And so, when the Southern Conference Educational Fund came over, it was the same thing. I've never understood quite … I mean, I've forgotten about it. I might have to ask Myles Horton about that. Anyway, I remember once that I became so disillusioned with the Southern Regional until I threatened to break all contact with it. And I was talking to Alice Spearman Wright about it and she said, "Well, sometimes I feel like that myself. But I'll tell you, there is a place in Southern Regional for people who want to do something, but don't want to go as far as people like ourselves want to go." So, she said, "There is a place for Southern Regional and I hope that you get that idea out of your mind." We have always been close, we could just talk anytime.
Was she in the Interracial Commission in South Carolina in the thirties?
I don't remember her having been there. You see, she didn't come from Columbia.
How did you know her, then?
As I remember, I came into contact with her … I don't remember ever being
at an Interracial meeting there, but I think that it was during ERA …
not the ERA we have now, but during the Roosevelt Administration,
economic recovery period. And I think that is when I first came to know
Alice. The thing that I remember first about her, that I
Tell me about how that happened with the Interracial Commission? I am sure that same kind of thing went on there, didn't it?
Yes.
What were some of the …
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Now, the white primary … not in the twenties and thirties?
Oh, yes. People were talking about wanting to vote. But they couldn't vote in anything but the general election every four years and in the city elections at home. Although naturally, we were taxed without representation and if we didn't pay taxes, they would take our homes. And so, just like now to a great extent, many people are taxed without representation. Not technically, either, but wide open. And the issue of playgrounds and recreation and police burtality, they did a lot along that line. Police brutality and transportation to various areas that weren't properly serviced for blacks. Most of the problems that they fought were … well, at that time, they didn't think that the whites had any problems, but they did have some, because they had a superiority complex, that's about as big a problem as anybody could have. So, we would get committees that would go to the white primary officials and try to get them to let us vote.
Did the South Carolina Interracial Commission take a public stand against the white primaries? How did they try to get rid of them?
No, that was done absolutely by blacks themselves, although I will try to make available to you a statement that was signed by a number of these people who were. I have some xeroxed copies of it. Some of them did sign a statement in favor of blacks voting, a number of these people who were on the Interracial Commission.
When?
That was when we were working against the white primary, let's see … we broke the white primary in … that must have been about 1944.
It was about '44 that they signed the statement?
Yes.
Before that, they wouldn't? The white members of the Interracial Commission.
Oh, yes. They would take public stands on something that was what you might call milk and water. But now, so far as taking a direct open fighting stand, I don't remember any of the men that did it, but now, sometimes, those women could get pretty rough. There was old Mrs. Stackhouse, Mrs. T.B. Stackhouse, who is now quite old. She is with a sister of hers up in Batcave, North Carolina. Now, Mrs. Stackhouse was just like a fire horse. There were one or two old sisters out of Charleston. Most of …
Kate Davis?
No, I didn't know her.
Have you heard of her?
Where did she live?
Charleston.
No, I don't know her. I don't remember her. I mean, I never met her. I know, because I have a pretty good memory. There was an old lady down there named Cornelia Dabney Tucker that worked some with us down there. But she was a paternalist, too. You know, they would be in favor of certain extra classes in school if they were classes like laundering and brick-laying and carpentry and things like that. But now, we didn't know what was going on in the white high schools, they were teaching them with … well, they didn't have computers then, but they were teaching them with machines where they could go to work in banks and things like that. But none of that was in the black schools.
There were a few white women who took stronger stands than the men did? Do you think that the women were stronger than the men?
I think that's true. And I think that it's true even among the blacks today.
Among both white women and black women?
Yes, I think even today. I've always believed that if we had more women in government … well, you know, the men have made a mess out of government all over the world and there is no place that they haven't made a mess out of. So, I … well, I may be wrong, because maybe in Switzerland they haven't and up in Sweden and up in those places, but wherever else they have been, they have made a mess out of it. And ordinarily, when you get these people speaking out, you get women speaking out …
How do you account for that?
Well, when it comes to black women, you know, it has always been said in
the South that the only two classes of people free in the South are
white men and black women. I know that you have heard that statement.
And the mother instinct in them is one thing. You know, a cat or a bird
or anything like that will fight for its children and the other is that
ordinarily, in very few instances have Negro women been lynched. They
lynched black men. And so, very often, the woman got away with the
things that a man wouldn't have gotten away with saying or doing. And I
think that the social structure had something to do with that in that
the number of the better conditions of the white homes … I mean better
conditions financially, they had black servants that just about ran
those homes, raised the children and all, you know. This is in Gone With the Wind, which I guess you've seen. Well,
the fine manners as to how the girls should behave when they went
somewhere and all of that, and just how they should express themselves
and all, those fine niceties, were
Well, how do you account for white women being more outspoken than white men?
I don't know, except that they realize, as the women in the old Interracial realized, that … you see, back there, when they first started that Interracial, it was not only against lynching, but fundamentally it was against the white men telling that lie all the time that they had to protect their women just as though the women didn't know when to say no and when to say yes.
And that came up in the meetings?
Yes, that was understood. That's one of the things, if you look back into the establishment of the old interracial movement here in Atlanta and some white women in other places … you see, white men always said that they were protecting white womanhood and they wanted to keep them pure. And they cloistered their women. Even in slavery, they would cloister their women, but they would go out and have babies by the slaves. And then, often these men in these prominent white families had their black paramours that their families knew about, because they didn't want to violate these young white women that were in those families. And even during slavery, some of the most beautiful black slaves, mulattos, were sold into the slave markets of New Orleans where they were bought to be mistresses of a number of sons of these masters. And of the masters themselves. And Thomas Jefferson had two or three daughters sold down there as slaves.
In the meetings of the Interracial Commission, did the white women talk about this situation?
No, it was known. They didn't talk about that. I don't remember that
coming up, but I do know that when you look back into the history of it,
that's what started it. They became incensed because the men were always
talking about them just like they were helpless, you know, snivelings.
And they knew that a lot of times, they were lying. And then, some of
them felt that it was a reflection on their intelligence. And then, a
number of them knew that their men were lying. Many times, when they did
this and were going on like that, they realized that … although I never
heard this said in a meeting, I've had it expressed to me otherwise,
that a lot of this thing
Did you have that expressed to you in private conversations?
Just talking like we are now, or maybe two or three people together. And very often, as in the case that I told you about my grandfather, it was known by the whites around there that he was going with these black women. And at the same time, they wanted to kill a black man that went with a white woman. And although prior to, I think it was 1895, when Ben Tillman started … with Ben Tillman's regime in South Carolina, there was no Jim Crow on the trains. Blacks and whites went to dances together. I've had an old white woman tell me that she had been to dances many nights where Negroes were with whites. They would visit each other's homes out on the plantation like that during Reconstruction and after Reconstruction. And then, they brought in these Black Codes. They took back the government and then they put in all these laws and that created this particular thing that we have had to fight all these hundred years.
Did you work more closely with white women than you did with white men in your career?
No, I don't think so. I've worked a lot with white men in connection with our political … you know, in elections.
Were you involved in the NAACP at the same time that you were involved in the Interracial Commission?
Yes. I belonged to the Columbia branch of the NAACP. It was organized in
1916. I didn't belong to it in '16, but the movement prior to the NAACP,
which was called the Niagara Movement, perhaps you have read about
Your parents were involved in the Niagara Movement?
My mother knew about it and she took membership in it.
Which was larger, the local NAACP or the Interracial Commission?
They were about the same.
And why did you put your energies into both organizations instead of just one?
Because, I guess that I had … well, you see, my mother had started me off in NAACP and I guess that I just went because my friends were there and it was interested in social problems and I don't know why I got hooked up in that Interracial thing. I don't remember that. It's been forty years.
I was just wondering whether one was a lot stronger and more outspoken than the other?
The NAACP was … they were about the same, because you see, at that time,
there wasn't really much that the NAACP could do, because we couldn't do
much at all until we got the ballot. All you could deal was appeal,
write letters and name a commitee to go talk to the mayor, or go talk to
Mr. So-and-So who was over at the playground, maybe he'll do something,
and all that kind of crap. So, they were just about the same. And in
other states, too, they all had organizations that were interested in
improvement and action. But you don't get any real action until you get
that ballot, you see? And let some of those cats know that come election
day, you are going to meet me at the box. I had a row, and when I say a
row, I mean one, because sometimes you don't get anything unless you run
roughshod. I remember telling a man once that
How did you know Mrs. Tilly? Did you go to the meetings in Atlanta?
Yes, I have. I saw her at Atlanta and then she came to Columbia to the Interracial there. And then Miss Tilly was living when the Southern Regional was organized. The first regular meeting of the Southern Regional was held in Atlanta. I'm not talking about the organizational meeting, that was held in Durham. Dr. Hancock2 called that in Durham up in North Carolina.
Did you know Mrs. Tilly in the thirties?
Yes.
I wonder, Mrs. Ames was the director of women's work and …
I may have known her, but it just doesn't register with me.
But Mrs. Tilly made more of an impression with you?
Yes. I very likely knew this other lady, but there was just something about Mrs. Tilly that was highly dramatic.
Is that right? What was she like?
Well, she was …
What was it about her?
Well, I don't know, just the way that she expressed herself, I guess. But
the last time I heard Mrs. Tilly speak, as I remember, she had organized
something here called the Fellowship of the Concerned, as I remember.
Something like that. But then, she was urging the people to go into the
courts as spectators to see how these people were treated in courts. I
think that's the last thing I remember. I am almost sure that I am
correct in that. They would go to the Recorder's Courts and the
Magistrates Courts and get
What about segregation? How did the South Carolina Interracial Commission deal with that issue? Did that come up in meetings, did people push to deal with that issue?
They would send … there was something, I remember. The playgrounds were a segregation thing, because they had playgrounds for whites and drinking fountains for white and not for blacks. Part of it was trying to get some blacks on the police force, I remember. Toward the end, that was an issue I remember. I don't remember much being done about the schools, because Columbia was supposed to have had one of the best public school systems around. But when that NAACP fight … the NAACP today is very much different than in those years, they have gotten kind of washed out, too. You see, organizations grow old just like people and the fighting and revolutionary spirit that NAACP had in those years is no more. So, when we started these fights and going into federal courts and things like that, why that's when we lost most of those, men in particular.
When did that come?
In the forties. We had the primary case in '42 o4 '43, somewhere in
there. It must have been in '43. Because the special session of the
legislature that pulled all the laws off the books about the primaries
was i-'44. There were a number of people, as I said, a number of whites
who wanted
Before I forget, did you know Mrs. John Hope, Charlotte Hawkins Brown?
Yes.
Those women were very involved in the beginning of women's involvement in the Interracial Commission. Did you work with them?
I met them in meetings. I knew Charlotte Hawkins Brown well. She and my brother-in-law in Greensboro were very good friends. When I say my brother-in-law, I mean him and his wife.
You came to Atlanta then, to meetings of the women's division of the Interracial Commission. Did you come to meetings that were all women?
I don't remember that. I just don't quite remember.
I'm wondering what kind of relationship those women had with the white women of the Interracial Commission?
I think that it was all amiable. I'm most sure that it was. Mrs. Bethune … I don't remember whether she was connected with the Southern Regional or not. I know that she wasn't at the first meeting that we had. But she was once on the board of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, I know that.
Well, in the research that I did, I came across a couple of different
conflicts that were going on at the very beginning of the Commission,
Well, I think that we probably did it quite often at home. You see, very often I would become disgusted with this business of going in there and setting up a whole meeting and asking why they didn't do this or that and they would set up a committee and say that on such-and-such a date when the city council was meeting, they would go before them and then, you would get this kickback. Now, I'm not a compatriot of … you see, those women were older than I and they were never together down here. You see, Atlanta early became a melting pot for that type of thing, because you see, the big Atlanta riot caused such a commotion that a lot of people got together after that and of course, they were closer here. And then, those that were older than I.
How did you see yourself as different or alike that generation that was older than you?
I don't know as I was like them very much. I was always kind of
Ladylike?
Yes. I don't believe in hurting anybody's feelings, but yet I think that if the truth is going to hurt you, just let it hurt.
What was Charlotte Hawkins Brown like?
Well, you know, she was the president of that school at Sedalia. Highly professional, very proud of herself.
That was an arts school, or a finishing school.
Finishing school, yes.
Her purpose was to raise …
Ladies. Exactly. I think that boys and girls both went there. Because my
brother-in-law's children went there. I'm almost sure they both went
How would you describe the kind of social change that she was trying to bring about in comparison with what you wanted? Was it just a different style, or were there real differences in …
I don't know if …
Different politics …
There weren't many politics then, because …
Different ideologies?
I don't know … I don't think that either of them would have taken the stands that I have taken and in the way that I have taken them. Because I have never stayed off the power structure, even as late as this election in South Carolina. And there are times that people want change and they will speak for change, but if it comes to the point where they have got to get nasty, so to speak, to let their positions be known, then they are not willing to go that far, you know. They kind of want to be a lady, you know, something like that. Now, I think that Charlotte Hawkins Brown would have been more like that than Mrs. Bethune. Because I remember the last time that I heard Mrs. Bethune speak here, she made this statement, she said that she was in a Pullman car and some man called her "Auntie." And she said, "Which one of my brother's children are you?" Now, how did she say that?
Right, "How am I related to you?", in other words.
Well, she made it this way, she made it so that … you see, they had been
willing to accept this where the father was white and the mother was
black. But she turned it around to where she said, she worked it to
where
Right.
So, she was a highly saracastic old soul when she wanted to carry her point.
What about Mrs. John Hope? Did you know her?
I didn't know her. Well, I couldn't say that I knew her in that way. Now, I knew Mrs. Hope and I knew Dr. Hope and I knew both sons.
I had an impression in my research of Mrs. Hope being a little bit more militant on the Interracial Commission …
I didn't know her that way at all. The only way that I knew Mrs. Hope, I was over here at Morehouse one summer at school, and I knew her there. I would see her at the school, but I never knew her at any meetings.
You were involved in the Southern Conference for Human Welfare from the beginning?
Yes.
You went to the Birmingham meeting and …
I wasn't at the Birmingham meeting, I couldn't get there, but I sent a representative from Columbia and I knew all the things that happened.
Did you stay with it all the way through the red-baiting?
Yes.
What do you think caused its downfall?