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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 U-0193, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Mary Ann Moore was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1948 and was an active participant in both the civil rights movement and the labor rights movement throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Moore begins the interview with a discussion of the segregated school system in Birmingham during the 1950s. In the early 1960s, Moore became a high school student at Carver High School in Birmingham. Moore recalls that her parents' generation was somewhat reluctant to become too involved in movement activism because they feared negative ramifications at their jobs. Young people like Moore, however, became quite actively involved with the support of their parents. Moore recalls in particular how Martin Luther King Jr. called young people to action during a speech at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Shortly thereafter, Moore and her peers participated regularly in civil rights marches, facing arrest and violent intimidation from Mayor Bull Connor. Moore proceeds to explain that her interest in issues of social justice was largely influenced by her father's union activities. An employee of the Birmingham Tank Company, Moore's father saw labor organization as the only avenue for improving conditions and opportunities for African American workers. Moore draws connections between the labor movement of the 1950s and the burgeoning civil rights movement, which she explores more closely in her discussion of her own labor activism beginning in the 1970s. After completing her bachelor's degree at the Tuskegee Institute, Moore was recruited by the Department of Veteran Affairs to earn her certification as a medical technologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham before accepting a position at the VA Hospital in 1971. Moore worked as a laboratory technician at the VA Hospital for thirty years. She describes in great detail how various forms of racial and gender discrimination operated during her years of employment. She offers numerous anecdotes about inequitable working conditions for black employees, and she cites repeated efforts by the hospital administration to discredit her because they believed her advocacy made her a troublemaker. As an active member of the union, and later its executive vice president, Moore campaigned for more equitable working conditions for African Americans, often appealing to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Following her retirement from the hospital, Moore became a community politician, eventually seeking election to the state legislature. The interview concludes with Moore's comments on lingering racial and class divisions in Birmingham, which she hoped to assuage in her capacity as a state legislator.
Mary Ann Moore was only a high school student when she began participating in civil rights activities in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1960s. After becoming a laboratory technician at the VA Hospital in Birmingham, Moore followed family tradition by becoming an active member of the union. She discusses her social justice activism in this interview while drawing connections between the civil rights and the labor rights movements of the second half of the twentieth century.
[START OF DISC 1, TRACK 1]
Today is Thursday, August 17, 2006. My name is Sarah Thuesen. I am interviewing for the Southern Oral History Program, the Long Civil Rights Movement Project. Today I'm talking with Mary Moore in Birmingham, Alabama at the Pickwick Hotel. Thanks very much for taking the time to talk with me.
Thank you for calling and extending the invitation.
Well, it's a pleasure. I thought we'd first just talk a little bit about your background and learn a little bit more about your earlier history, then talk some about your career both at the VA Hospital and in politics. Where did you grow up?
I was born in Birmingham, Alabama. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. I went to school, elementary—during those days it was elementary, first grade through eighth and then high school. After I finished high school I got my undergraduate degree at Tuskegee, then Institute, slash University now. When I graduated from Tuskegee Institute, went on to UAB in medical technology.
That was the beginning process—the federal government had had
problems integrating that school of medical technology. They, every
year, came to different black
After that I started working at the VA Hospital in Birmingham, got my MBA
degree from Alabama A&M University. Growing up in Birmingham
that was during the time we had segregated schools. You had a few
schools for blacks, many schools for whites. The black community most
often you had more elementary schools. When I first entered elementary
school in '54 the only high school for the City of Birmingham
was Parker High School. Later on, we got one high school that came into
the city, Jackson, only because they became annexed into the city. We
had Ullman High School. During the early '50s I think there
were many articles written that Parker High School was probably the most
populated high school in the United States. That was the basic high
school for blacks in this city. By the time I finished elementary
school, because of segregated issues to desegregate, the schools had
heightened. Then what the city thought they would do is build a new high
school, which was Carver High School, to relieve the overflowing of
Parker High School and at the same time satisfy the black community that
now we're providing more high schools. So you
don't have to worry about trying to
That took part during my ninth grade year in high school. Some of my friends and church members that were in the tenth grade, a young lady, Patricia Patton was one of the first students, outside of Reverend Shuttlesworth's children, that was trying to integrate the then Phillips High School. They all were a part of that initial effort to integrate schools in the City of Birmingham. Past that point a few blacks, once the school was integrated, would attend Phillips and some of the other schools automatically. Prior to that we had a few— the Graymont Elementary school was all white school. There was an attempt to integrate that school. I think most of the young children, the parents of those children eventually, so people up in the North asked us, they had such a hard time in the school if they could take their children out of the state of Alabama for protection. That's what ended up happening to those children. Many of those young people that was a first in integrating the high schools in the City of Birmingham, once they finished high school, they left the city. Because of the mental impact was not able to come back and settle in the city. During that same time, during the '60s, '63 was when Dr. King sent his plea out to children to become a part of the movement. Early on we were just going to movement meetings at night to hear what was going on.
Were your parents involved in—?
During that time most of our parents were afraid. The rationale was that when their bosses learned that they were participating with the Movement, then they were fired. In many cases the parents would encourage the children to go to the Movement.
You had some, quite a few like the ministers. In that time it was no danger for many of the ministers because they got their basic pay from their congregation. They didn't have to experience the threat of being fired because their living was paid for by their congregation. You had a lot of ministers that was active in the Movement then. Young people. A lot of people that was just brave people during the time and were going to defy the segregation, the segregated structure regardless. There were many of us at night, after school we walked from one side of this city to the other trying to get to a Movement meeting. Then once the decision was made by Dr. King that it would be better to use children to take the Movement to the next step—and I always remember that night. Because after the decision was made—usually when we would go to the movement meeting adults were the ones to sit down—children stood up around the walls, in the balconies of the church. On that particular night Dr. King asked the adults, "Why don't you step back and let the children come forth?" His message that night was to the children.
You were present at that meeting?
That was at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. We were always in the
balcony, I mean, a proud moment. Here it is Dr. King telling the grown
people step back and let the children come forth because his message was
for us. He preached that night about our role and how it relates back to
biblical times when things were hard, in many cases, children were used
in order to propel the spiritual message that got out then. That
What's his name?
His name was Rayfield Moore. Several members of our football team, my
brother Rayfield, Clarence Byrd, and there was another young man that
was killed during the Vietnam and his name is—that was
killed—I always could see his face, never can remember his
name. I know he was one of the football players because most of them had
committed that they would be arrested. Part of the thing that they were
looking at was that you needed enough young men to be arrested because
there was uncertainty as to what would happen to the young ladies. They
were going in for a two fold purpose because of the movement and also to
look out for the young ladies once they were arrested. They herded them
all on buses and hurried them to various places in the city. Used to be
called, it's still called the Fairground where they housed a
lot of the children. That was during '63. We got through that
faze and went on eventually to integrate the schools. Later on after I
finished high school in '66 they more or less stepped up the
integration process after then. Like my younger brothers, they decided
that even though they had been zoned for Carver High School for years,
but we lived close to Phillips High School, so many of the children
would have to go to Phillips. Then, when it got to point
You graduated from Carver in '66, right?
'66.
Were you ever arrested?
Never arrested, thank god. My mother always told us we could march as
long as we wanted to, me and my sister. But because of her lack of trust
of the law enforcement at that point in time, she told us we could march
all day. My brother could be arrested because he was a boy. She just was
never certain as to what could possibly happen to a young lady. We
marched and marched and marched and marched everyday. Just like we were
going to work until the marches were called off. Every day we got up,
went to the church, got out there and marched, ran from the policemen,
look around the corner to see if we see Bull Connor and his white tank.
Once we could get past, then zoom back into the park we go. When the
police started chasing us we'd run them and run to some place
of safety to hide out. Once they would give up we'd come out
and run right back into the park again. It was a lot. The thing is to
have lived through that time, during the time when they put the dogs on
children and to know your friends—. I met a young lady while
I was campaigning; I met a lady this year. She was telling me,
"Yeah, I was in that park." She was hit by the hose in
her chest. She said, "I never recovered because the pressure of
that hose on my chest has resulted in a lot of medical
problems." It was a dangerous time but I could see where Dr.
King was coming from. It's like today, children think they
going to live forever, nothing can hurt us because we are children.
I'm sure your parents must have been really worried about you at this time. What did they do?
I think most parents during that time—you have to realize the black community during those days, highly religious. Their thought process was that God was going to protect us anyway. That we were doing something that was to help everybody. They felt certain at the end of the day, we were going to return home and get up another day and start all over again. I don't think the fear was there even with parents. With them and their religious background, this is something that had been ordained by God to be done. Dr. King was his messenger to get it done. Dr. King said this is the way we'll have to do it, through peaceful protests, then that was the way it was going to be. No parent thought that their child was going to go out and be hurt. Even when they brought out the dogs and the hose pipes, it still didn't affect them that way because through them they believe we'll continue to pray. This is what we've got to go through.
What did your parents do here in Birmingham?
My father worked at one of the plants in North Birmingham. My mother,
during that time, my mother was a maid at the Thomas Jefferson Hotel.
Most of the time, like I said, during those days women, in my
neighborhood for the most part, some of them had to work, we were all
poor. Men worked. Women stayed at home and took care of the children
until they got to be a certain age. That's when most women
would move
What plant was your dad at?
Birmingham Tank Company. It's located now in Pascagoula, Mississippi. They build these huge tanks that go underground for different things. I guess for water, oil or whatever.
Was your dad ever involved in labor organizing?
Yes. My daddy was union. My daddy was union and the thing is when they unionized his company, when they said strike. He struck.
Which union was he—?
I don't remember the local but it was a part of AFL-CIO. They
unionized. A few companies managed to get unionized during those days.
Like in North Birmingham, you had Sloss Industries and Sloss was
unionized. Birmingham Tank Company was unionized. ACIPCO [American Cast
Iron Pipe Company], which is still one of the major companies, never
unionized. Their company was thoroughly unionized. I remember the
strikes when they went on strikes for better pay, better conditions and
things. You just go up and take him his lunch while he sitting on the
picket line. They make their little fire and sit there days on and days
in. Originally, when they would start having to—before the
food stamp era in the South—people in the neighborhood just
help you out. If your father worked at one of the companies and it was a
unionized company and those companies went on strike, people in the
neighborhood made sure you had food to eat. We all kind of merged
together. All of us was in basically the same economic condition which
we didn't know it was poor at that time. From a
child's perspective,
Do you remember you dad talking about why union membership was really important to him?
During that time when you realize that most jobs, blacks had never been supervisors. They always had to do the hardest part of the job. His thing was it was an opportunity. First of all, unions came in and if you are in a unionized facility you could get better pay. You can get better pay. You can have the opportunity that the union would eventually fight for you to get a better position, even though during those segregated times it was difficult. The union, in its own way was a part of the Civil Rights Movement. What the union did, it made sure that whether you are black, white, pink or blue, you share a similar income. That was one of his things. He was die hard union. He could see the advances made as far as pay and working conditions once the union came into his plant.
Was his union fairly integrated in terms of—?
During that time, even though it was fairly integrated, you still had the white bath house, the black bath house. All of them stood on the picket line. All of them built that one little fire that they all sat around because everybody was in the same situation. When you go back and you look, that probably was the most integrated part of American life, was those members of the union. They all were fighting together to improve their quality of life. It seems as though it broke down color barriers.
Getting a little bit more into your own experience with labor organizing, tell me a little bit about when you started working at the VA Hospital.
At the VA Hospital. When I went into the VA, at that point in time, when I got there, they had a union of sorts.
What year was that?
I went to work in '71. They had a union of sorts. I mean from the perspective that they had gone through the process of petition. You have to understand, our bosses is Congress and the President. They had already, with the help of the AFL-CIO, gone ahead and petitioned Congress and the President for them to have the ability to form a union. Normally what ends up happening, if a place wants to become unionized they got to get—. AFL-CIO will first come in and you contact them and say we're interested in unionizing our work place. Then what has to happen after that is they have to get so many signatures of the employees to say that we want to become unionized. We are petitioning to be allowed to have a vote, the employees to determine if that was going to happen. That had already taken place at the VA when I got there. That was the early days of the union.
To say that it was a union of a sort, we were recognized as having a
bargaining unit. AFL-CIO was our bargaining unit for us. Any time we
needed to have wage discussions or better working conditions, they were
the ones that sat at the table for us. To date, probably AFGE,
that's American Federation of Government Employees, probably
still one of the younger unions when you consider the United Mine
Workers, the United Auto Workers, and those types of unions that have
been around for a lot longer. As we matured and finally got full union
status of being American Federation of
Early on, being a union member at the VA Hospital, it was very difficult. A lot of times management would harass you. You were given the toughest job and given orders to do things that was just totally unreasonable. As we grew in strength and when employees finally saw that through the suffering of union members, conditions in the workplace got better.
To give you an example of how we matured, there used to be a time in the
VA Hospital—if you in nursing, well, anything in a
hospital—it could be a twenty-four hour shift.
That's one thing that in any hospital with the staff. Early
on we worked under strict military rules. Everything we did was
according to military time—everything in the operation of the
hospital was military oriented. As we got more and more into being
recognized as a union and could get to the bargaining table to say that
we are civilians and we've got to come up with some different
guidelines that's—. Even though many of the
workers still at the VA are people with military backgrounds you still
have civilians that are working there that don't come under
the compass of the military. Those types of things—hours to
work. They could come in and tell you, well you put in eight hours you
got to work eight more hours. You could put in that sixteen hours, you
need to work a little bit longer until you are just about to fall on
your face. The conditions were extremely rough. You almost had no voice.
As our union grew and as we got to a point
It got to a point that you couldn't work but so many hours
straight unless you volunteered to do that. We went from the mandatory
overtime 'til if it was overtime needed, whether it was a
emergency situation, first line that management was supposed to do was
to post it and allow people to work it. I might have worked in a
department all day where I've been on my feet, death could
have been on the line all day, where a patient could have been in
surgery. I could have been in blood bank all day cross matching blood.
Then you come back and say I need you to work eight more hours in this
and this. At that point my ability to detect a problem with a patient is
minimized. I could cause that patient some harm. Over the time it just
got to a point that rather than having mandatory, that in a hospital
setting especially—Social Security covers under the same
local that we do, the Department of Defense—then it got to
the point that we could demand better working hours and let the
employee, when you needed that extra work or people didn't
come in, then you can always allow them to volunteer first line. If you
got no volunteers to come up, then you try to come up and decide on a
rotational basis who would work. We did it according to seniority. You
come right down the seniority list and decide one person work overtime
this day because nobody would volunteer. Then
I was going to ask you what—.
All management was white. Most blacks worked midnight shifts or evening shifts so you didn't see us period. Most of the whites worked day shift and went home. We took up when 3:30 came in, when the evening shift started then you saw the few blacks that worked at the hospital. When I went to the VA in '71 you could probably count the number of black nurses we had. In the laboratory I think we might have had about five blacks working in our laboratory counting me. I think we had a staff then of maybe forty or fifty people working there. Even down to dietetic service, very few blacks worked in dietetic service. Very few blacks worked as custodians. In fact, very few blacks were patients at the VA Hospital in Birmingham. During that time the majority of black veterans were sent to the Tuskegee VA Hospital. The majority white came to Birmingham or Tuscaloosa, some of the other VA facilities. There was a desegregating effort to take place there.
Black doctors were unheard of. Black doctors were unheard of. We saw some
of our first black doctors, like Dr. Rick Ranson is still working in the
Birmingham area. They came through as interns and residents and just
made us proud to see black doctors. A lot of integration took place.
Slowly what ended up happening, many of our white nurses disappeared.
The white there were custodians and building maintenance. Many of them
disappear. Our engineering department, when I retired in 2000, still had
a significant number of whites still working in the engineering
department. They're the people doing all the instrument
repair. They call engineering a lot of stuff nowadays. In
We began to see more blacks in management. They would bring them is as—never director of the hospital—but one of his assistant directors. Most times they going to put them over something like personnel or they would be assistant to the person who was over personnel. When I left we still, we never saw a black over nursing service. You never saw a black over laboratory services. So, as far as getting into upper management, that still did not exist in the VA hospital.
During the time that Clinton was president, he was a godsend for us
because some of the things he allowed to happen in the VA helped
everybody in workplaces regardless of the country. Clinton put in the
Family Medical Leave. If your child or a close family member is sick you
can use your sick leave time to be off to take care of them. If you
didn't have the sick leave time—your annual leave
is our vacation leave—you could use that to start staying at
home. It was a godsend when it happened because I knew of employees that
was fired because their mother might have had a stroke. Their father
might have had cancer. They had to stay at home or come to work late.
They would be so intolerant that they wouldn't even allow an
employee to come to work late after they got their parents situated.
They would fire those people because your job is most important. Your
family don't count. I think Clinton added some human
qualities to the union and in efforts that the union had been fighting
for years. The time—and I always remember him making the
statement that as president if his daughter needed him to come to school
for a program he could go. That should be given to the everyday worker.
That helped a lot of parents out. Parents want to go to see their
children perform in school.
When you started there in '71 you must have been part of a relatively small number of black employees then?
Small.
Yeah. What was it like working in a mostly white work place at that time? That wasn't so long after the '60s.
I tell you during that time one thing that's—. We were treated pretty well in the work place because the average white would come and say, "You are not like the other blacks." "Why are we not like the other blacks?" "Because you got employed." "Well, there are some other ones that like to be employed, too." "You are college educated." The sad thing about it, I had to be college educated in order to get my job in the laboratory. Four years at Tuskegee, got a BS degree in Pre-Med, math and science major. The average white that was working in the lab, high school diploma. Some relative knew somebody and they brought them in and trained them. Once they got—. Some did have degrees. It turned out most of us with degrees would have to continue to train those that's been there for years before we even got there.
Another thing that stood out at that time that Medical Technology, as far
as females was concerned, was a position for white women whose husbands
were in medical school. They would understand the process better. That
was one of the problems that you had to face, that this is a position
for white females whose husbands are in medical school or white males
who are thinking about becoming doctors. Prior to medical
Did you work the night shift for how many years?
I worked the nightshift for so long. I was on nightshift almost twelve years. Little by little, during that twelve year cycle, they started putting more and more blacks on dayshift. The thing they told me when I went to work there was that you know the people that work evening and midnight shift, they have to work all the holidays. All the holidays? I'm coming out of college, all the holidays? I don't get any time off. Their philosophy lasted until the union matured enough that you just can't make these people work all the holidays. In some cases that meant that if on the holidays you'd have no patients coming into clinic, I might have to come in and work midnight and not get off until four o'clock the next day. I worked the dayshift because the whites stay at home enjoying Christmas or Thanksgiving or Fourth of July and you work. We might end up doing two shifts. Things changed through the union efforts. They got it to the point, first of all more of us was able to work dayshift then.
Little by little, the challenge through, not only union now, but EEOC.
You had the equal opportunity act that required them when they started
posting managerial positions that you open the doors up for blacks to
apply for those positions, too. We had
About what year would that have been?
That was like the late '70s, the early '80s. Then what ended up happening, we started looking more and more at the EEO records that the hospital was sending into Washington. The question that I had to ask on those records then was it had down there that we had blacks in administration and nursing service. I started going around asking the nurses. Can you identify the black nurse that is also an administrator? Nobody could find them. I think that was one of the major turnovers in the VA Hospital. Through the EEOC and union efforts they had to eventually start promoting black nurses to administrative roles. Originally started by making them supervisors, naturally on the nightshift. It eventually got to dayshift. Whereas the head nurse or chief of nursing service might have been white or some other minority other than black, they would have a black assistant and numerous black nurses that would fall under. Then the next phase that we had to fight was that most of the black administrators were females. Then we had to fight to get males, the male nurses. Because a lot of our nurses, male, were nurses in the military.
Was there some reason that you think management was more inclined to hire black women than black men?
They had to hire most of the black men because they were military. Then
surprisingly enough, many of our black female nurses were military. I
think it's always a
Did you join the union right away when you first started working there?
I joined the union maybe a year or so after I started working. The reason why I joined the union is one of the young men that worked in the nursing service, any time he would come in the lab he would say, "Well, Mary I just see you working all the time. Are you ever off?" I kept telling him they told me, working the shift that I'm working, I've got to work the holidays. I've got to work overtime. When in reality what was happening with me was different than what was happening to some of the blacks in the laboratory.
To go back to the educational process, when the federal government asked
for recruits to come and integrate the School of Medical Technology
there was six of us from different schools. Two of us came from
Tuskegee. A couple came from, at that point in time, Alabama
A&M didn't have a program. They would, the junior
year, their students went to Long Island University. Then they would do
their internship there. After they finished their senior year, they
recruited some of them to come and be in their program. Out of the six
that was in the program, one young lady, Angela Finley, had started at
UAB, one of the first blacks that started UAB in medical technology.
They felt pretty comfortable with Angela. But then you got five blacks
that was not a part of UAB to
These were administrators of the Medical Technology Program?
Right. They had a way of not ever being able to say Negro. It always came
out "Niggras" are not mentally able to do well in
science courses. You getting ready to take you chemistry: "You
won't do well because you just don't have the
mental capacity." My thought process was this: I attended
Tuskegee Institute. My chemistry instructor was one of the top chemists
from Germany. If I could pass Dr. Gierach's course, there was
nothing at the UAB that even came close to her. She was one of the top
scientists there that came here on a fellowship. When I took
Parasitology, it was one of the top doctors in that field that came from
Mayo Clinic. Now, you going to tell me little old UAB that's
got a School of Medical Technology over the Dew Drop Café
where we listen to country music everyday, smell all the greasy food,
going to tell me I can't pass your chemistry courses.
You're Parasitology, your biology. I told them
that—I had to explain to them. They thought I was crazy. I
said, "Look, I'm far superior than anybody that
you'll ever have come through here." I said,
"As a ninth grader leaving eighth grade going to ninth grade,
do you not know that I was on college campuses then?" During
the segregated eras they had programs where if you excelled in science
or math, during the
When I got to the VA Hospital after I—. They couldn't stop me from making it through the course and doing my internship. They blackballed me. UAB blackballed me to every hospital in Birmingham and probably in the state of Alabama. Whenever I went to get a job, when I got close to graduation, and started putting in my application, people would say I don't care what you are qualified to do, we've already gotten your name and we're not going to give you an application. No hospital would give me an application. My second thing to do was to call Washington and call Central Office. You all recruited me. You asked me to come to this school along with other students to help integrate it. Now you all got to do something. Technically they hired me from Washington, DC.
What was the agency you were dealing with in Washington?
The Department of Veterans Affairs. They govern the VA Hospitals. They were the ones that were educationally seeking more students in Medical Technology that was black.
They had also recruited you to do the program in the first place?
They were the ones. I called and said, "Look here I can't get a job here. I've done what you asked me to do. I've been successful. Now, where do I get a job?" They technically hired me from Washington. All I had to do was report to this VA. You have to understand that the VA Hospital and university just like this. They did everything in their power to discredit me. Even to the point that they falsif—. Only vacation that I had, when I first started working, they would not even let me take vacation. After about two years or so I managed to get vacation time off. Went on vacation, came back. I was hit with a charge of turning out a patient's result that was false. I'm saying, "How did I do that?" The people that did it didn't know that I didn't show up for work that night because I had already signed up that I would not come on midnight shift. I'll start my vacation because we had enough people to cover. When I got back they were saying, "Well, you know you misdiagnosed a patient. You wrote down his lab work in hematology which showed that the patient had Leukemia because you misidentified the cells." I said, "I misidentified the cell. I don't think so." I had to go through that process. Finally showed out I was not at work that night. You need to find out who it was that did that. It was one of the white supervisors. I had that to happen all the way up to maybe a few years before I retired.
Even to the point when Bush daddy was president I had to write him everyday on the things that was happening to me from being expelled from the laboratory.
You wrote letters to the White House?
I wrote letters to the White House everyday for his whole four year cycle
to tell him they put me out of the hospital because they said that I was
a negative influence on the other techs because of the things I said and
did. They wanted to speak up. They didn't want that to happen
but they couldn't come up with charges of me not doing my
job. In the research wing of the hospital, that's where they
set my lab up. I had to do all of the syphilis tests and things of that
nature. No tech was allowed to come in there. Supervisor would bring my
work load in, in the morning, and put the work load there. I would do
it, put everything in the computer. In the evening they would come back
with the—we were going through the transition of actually
still having the paper copies going to the floor plus computer copies. I
stayed in that situation for about two years. Then when Bush father left
the White House someone called the VA Hospital to ask—and I
was writing Senator Heflin. Senator Heflin was the senator from Alabama.
I wrote both of them. At that time something broke about the
mistreatment of federal employees. 60 Minutes was
interested in doing a story. Somehow or another, in order to cover their
butt, they say, "Well we've had someone
that's been keeping on top of this." They showed
them the letters that I had written. People started calling
my—my bosses started getting upset, "Why would the
White House call us like this to find out what's happening to
you? We had to tell them you're one of our best employees and
stuff." I told them I've been writing them everyday
telling them of the things that you all would do to me. I mean to put me
in an area completely by myself. Then when they brought me back into the
laboratory they told my coworkers, "If you speak to her more
than two seconds you'll be written up for
insubordination." My coworkers' friends were afraid
to
One of their last great efforts to discredit me was I came to work one
morning and this supervisor say, "Here's a unit of
blood that they need in intensive care unit. All you need to do when the
nurse comes down is just give it to her. You don't have to
check the paper work. You don't have to do
anything." Common sense and the discipline in the profession
says, "Don't do that." When I pulled the
paperwork out, pulled the patient's card, two different types
of blood. Now that supervisor knew that unit was the wrong type of
blood. They would rather sacrifice that patient getting that blood in
order to discredit me. What ended up happening, nurse came to pick up
the blood. I said, "Give me a few minutes. I detected an error.
Let me double check the unit. Then I'll bring it to the
floor." I took that unit, put it in my locker. I cross-matched
the correct unit, took it to the floor. Nobody double checked to see
what had happened. About three o'clock that day they said,
"We're going to have to put you on leave without
pay." I said, "Why?" "Because you
gave a patient a unit of blood that was the wrong type." I
said, "No, I didn't." "Yes you did
and here's the record where the patient had a
reaction." They had already done the paperwork to say that the
patient had done had a reaction. I said, "Well, no
that's not true. But whatever. I'm just asking you
to go ahead and have my hearing as soon as possible," which
they did within the same week. I went to my locker. I got the unit of
blood. I said, "Here's the unit of blood."
The signature is the midnight shift
Back in the late '60s huh?
'70s. I went to Med Tech school in '70-'71 at UAB. She was in that class. Racist. Would never sit next to a black person, even if it meant she had to sit outside the door. She wasn't going to sit next to the blacks. Some of the whites in our class used to make jokes. What they would do is everybody would take up all the seats and leave one seat where she would have to sit next to a black person. She was just—. Everybody would just fall. Over time, like I said, most cases we got along, the students did. The problems came from the instructors and the administration.
That was their last ditch effort to try to discredit me as far as my
ability to work in the lab. Then at some point in time, little by
little, they saw that all of the directions for every department, be it
blood banking, chemistry, hematology, microbiology, parasitology,
whatever. I had rewritten the directions and procedures for all of our
test procedures. When they looked in there to try—they said,
"Why did she do that?" When I would be on midnight
shift I was tinkering with the procedures. When I got to dayshift, I
learned to call the different laboratories, research labs,
"What have you done that is different to make this test
better?" In the process of me going to my supervisor they
really didn't pay me that much attention. I would say,
"Look here. I'm contacting so and so lab. They think
they have a new procedure." "Well, you go on ahead and
work it." That meant that that kept me occupied and I
didn't have the opportunity to have an
Getting back to your union activity just a little bit. When you first got involved with it who were the lead organizers? Who recruited you?
The man's name was—his last name was Parker. He was one of the people on nursing service. He was the one that told me they are mistreating you in this laboratory. You need to go and talk to your union official. At that time the union president was ill. The vice president, at that time, was a black guy that worked in dietetic. His last name was Tucker. He was the one—. Even when I went to him, even though we were unionized '72, '73, his bosses—. At that time the bosses still kind of had a hold on our union people. A lot of the meaningful cases that they should have been addressing, the bosses would make it so hard on them that they couldn't get the official time. Even though I had made my complaint you have a window there of opportunity. Once Parker said, "Well, you need to make your complaint." He had me to file a complaint to the union official as well as EEOC. That's what pulled me into EEOC because of my own personal complaint. Once I got that satisfied then I became—. The union said, "You've had more dealings with them. You were successful so we'll make you our representative to EEOC." Basically, I had to—because the union president's supervisor limited his time that he could talk to me. I ended up having to learn union procedures on my own to fight my own situation.
Were the union leaders white or black?
At that time they were about fifty fifty. In fact, it might have been more white than black mainly because the hospital was mostly white at that time. You only had a few blacks there that was brave enough—. We were already being discriminated against, the handful that was there, by having to work the late shifts all the time. One set of rules were for whites. One set of rules were for blacks. The majority of the people that spearheaded it was white.
In fact, one of our most dedicated union workers lost his job, basically
because he had won several major union complaints and was just set up by
management. In fact, they promoted one of our most dedicated union
stewards to be over our laboratory. They did that because they figure
Linda knew the union rules and regulation. She knew where the weak
points were. She learned those weak points from this guy who was her
best friend, one of our union officials. They figured if they could
break his back it would break the union. When they fired him on drummed
up charges she called him to her office on day because a
mediator—he was supposed to have an arbitration case. The
arbitrator supposedly called her office to find him. When he
couldn't find him he was going to return the call to her
office. He went to the office, was standing in the door when I saw him
on the phone. By the time I got back, went on my break came back ten
minutes later; they said he attacked the supervisor. I said,
"Well that's not true. He talked on that telephone
in the doorway." That was one of the weakness of the union was
that. Anytime a manager say that you attack them they would believe the
manager over you. As far as that manager was concerned she was still our
chief tech when I retired. I never went into an office with her, never.
She used to would stand and cry in front of the laboratory.
"Mary doesn't trust me. She refused to go and talk
to me in my office." I
Were race relations pretty—? How would you characterize race relations?
Race relations, when I retired—.
I was thinking actually, first of all, within the union in its early days.
Within the union in the early days race relations were fairly okay. You had a few whites that felt that the union was for whites only. To give you an example we had an asbestos case that went on for several years. One of the union officials that signed on to that asbestos case was white, extremely racist. When the government finally settled the case he was the one that they called in to negotiate the settlement for VA employees. He went in and got a settlement only for white males that worked in engineering. The government, being the way that they were, they knew that that wasn't right. They accepted that as the settlement for our asbestos case. They knew that a handful of white men working in the engineering department were not the only ones that had been exposed to asbestos. They took that and closed that case out. When I left we were still trying to reopen that case.
For the most part, most of them—. I tell you this. One reason
we had many whites that accepted blacks real well was that a lot of
those white men especially were people from up North. Met their wives
either in the military or while they were on duty at one of the military
bases in the South and married and moved south. Even with the
I'm curious, when you were involved with the union in the early '70s, did you see this as an extension as your civil rights activism or by that time did you think the Civil Rights Movement was over?
The Civil Rights Movement will never be over. I always told them, because I was a child of the '60s, that my union involvement was because of injustice, didn't matter who it was being done to. The Movement had taught us that any injustice, if it's happening to you, if I don't speak up about it, eventually it's going to come to me. You got to realize even in the workplace you had racial issues. You had issues with females because many of the managers were male. There were women-oriented issues also that you had to fight. The union to me was just one of the categories that came under the Civil Rights Movement. Even though the union is what helped motivate the Civil Rights Movement when you look at A. Philip Randolph in his battle with the porters on the railroad train, the trains, and things of that nature. That was a part of the Movement together.
Even now, as an elected official, I try to explain to people that rather than being a politician I'm a community activist that's really fighting for people to have the best quality of life they can. Even though my concentration, most times, is centered around blacks, because I see the hands of the clock being turned back and many of our black elected officials have just painted themselves in this closed room where they can't see it. They just say, "Well, oh it's because of this. It's because of that." They've adopted some of the theories that were put out during Jim Crow era.
What theories are referring to?
I'm referring to the fact that, "Most blacks are lazy." When you look at this country, prior to the depression who did all the work? I say that's black and white. When they want to bring it out and tell the truth about what was happening in this country, who was working? Then after the depression the scope of this country changed where more whites had to be put into the work force. You went through hundreds of years of slavery where they just sat on their front porch, under the veranda or some place while we did the hard work. A lot of people have bought into the only reason that black person hasn't achieved is because they don't want to achieve.
Nobody, even when I was a school board member, it was hard to get the
superintendent and other school board members to understand. For
instance, I went to a school one day. Young lady came to school late.
Automatically the assistant principal sent her home. I said,
"Why are you sending her home? You haven't even
learned why she was late." It turned out with that young lady
her sister was pregnant, went into labor that night, the night before.
Parents refused to go to the hospital with her. So she went. Her sister
delivered by four or five that morning. She stayed there until
everything was
Right.
But you are going to send her back home for some unspecified number of days and say, "Oh she's just being lazy and shiftless. She don't want an education." Never checked out the story. You hear this story now many times, they'll say, "The reason we got Mexicans coming in is because they are doing the jobs that blacks don't want." Tell me the job that a black person don't want. We got black men riding around here with lawn mowers in the back of they car so they can mow somebody's lawn. We got them around here with ladders strapped to car to find somebody who want them to paint their house. So tell me the jobs they don't want. The only job that I see that nobody would want is that if you take me into a job—and I've seen this happen in Birmingham—where they'll tell a black person I can only—. I know minimum wage is five dollars and whatever but I can only pay you four dollars. I can get some Mexicans that'll do it for three dollars. It's like they had a guy on TV yesterday evening. He said I'm working a job trying to make do, earning five dollars an hour. The apartment that me and my family live in is $400 a month. I got to have transportation to get to that job. I don't even earn enough money in a day to buy the gas to go in my car, to go to the job, so how do you expect me to be able to pay high utilities, high gas for my car, high gas to cook and heat in my house, and then pay the rent or the house note, then buy food. We bending to that "Oh they don't want to work." No, if it's going to take me more money to get to the job and at the end of the day I don't have any money to take care of my family, that's the only job people don't want.
You were saying you've been a little disillusioned by some black officials promoting these theories?
Some of them have bought into that concept. I take it to be in some cases they are out of touch with their communities. What happens when you become an elected official? Same thing that happened to me when I went to the VA Hospital and the first white person came up to me and say, "You different from the rest of them." How am I different? You get into a whole new world being elected official. You see everything different. You have the opportunity to go to places maybe some of us have never been before and exposed to different thing. Then somewhere along the line somebody convince you that maybe you need to move. If you living in and inner city community like I do, "Well, maybe you need to move to the edge of your district where the community is better." It's a controlled community because the streets are a certain way. Everybody is of a certain classification or professionalism. Pretty soon you don't go to that part of the district where you've been.
Many elected officials, black and white—I have to put
accountability more on blacks for the struggle that we've
gone through and the Civil Rights Movement is what made it possible for
us to get where we are—you realize that those of us as
children in the streets fighting were children of poor people. Therefore
we sacrifice so that someone whose child had a greater chance of getting
a college degree or a better job, their children took the advantage of
our struggle. Many people don't even know we exist.
They've completely forgotten about what happened to the
children that was in the Movement. If your parent won this or
your—. For instance, one of my best friends, her brother was
one of Dr. King's first hired staffers. I have to tell her a
lot of times, "The reason your picture
Who was that?
His name is Reverend James Orange. He's still big with SCLC. Go to Altanta, do you know Reverend James? Yeah, I know Reverend James Orange because of his relationship with Dr. King. I hae to tell her all the time, "That's why your picture—" What happened to your classmates whose brother was not a part of the movement? Whose parents were not a part of the Movement? Nobody knew about us. We are just here. Most of us, many of those children never were able to take advantage of the freedoms that they were able to get and the changes that they were able to make in this country. Many of them were never able to take advantage of it.
What would have made it possible for more people to take advantage of the victories of the Civil Rights Movement?
What actually happened was, I guess, the white establishment realized
that we are going to have to make some concessions to blacks. They
established a comfort zone. To give you an example of that, I read this
book once called or dealt with Clarksdale, Mississippi.
That's where Epsy was from that was over agriculture for
Clinton. The book starts with the depression and it comes all the way
up. It talks about conversations that was held with the white
establishment. They said, "You know we've got to
make some concessions to the black community. In order for us to do it
we just can't let any black take these positions
that'll come open because it could be a threat to
us." What normally they did was looked out in the black
community to see which black person out there is more comfortable to us.
We'll open the doors for that person. We'll
For a person like me, first of all I grew up in North Birmingham, participated in the Movement, you can count the elected officials, even now, that participated in the Movement and came out of the area of their particular cities or counties that was mostly black. A lot of our elected officials came from what was termed the elitist black communities. They were the ones that were more or less hand picked or singled out. "That's a good person right there. We don't feel so threatened with that person because being an elected official they'll know their place is to sit, be quiet, nod their head. When we tell you to show up you show up."
Did you foresee that some of these patterns would develop that you're describing, even in the late '70s or were you hopeful at the time, say, when Arrington was elected as mayor that things would really change?
I was a child of the '60s in all respects. Many of us that
went to those Movement meetings, many of us that sacrifice and went to
march in those parks and to demonstrate and even to do whatever we had
to do for the movement, many of us believe that if we could turn this
country around and allow blacks to be in key positions, elected
officials appointed to different boards and agencies, because of our
existence in this country, we could show everybody that we could do a
better job, that we know how to treat people fairly. That's
what we fought for. We knew to give a person credit if that credit is
due. We could treat you equally. We would be the spokespersons for
people receiving the best quality of life and the quantity of life, to
deal with the health care, the education, all of those things that we
were denied. I always remember my granddaddy talking about they were
sharecropping and when his mother got sick the only thing the whites
said was, "You know we love Sally but we can get us another
Negro maid." That was it. I was sure as a child that if the
doors open up where I can have the opportunity to get an education, have
an opportunity to come back to my community and could see blacks as
mayors. Then we had the commission form of government in Birmingham but
we changed to the Mayor Council form. When I see blacks serving on that
council or blacks even in the mayor's position, that was
unheard of until Dr. Arrington came up out of the ashes. Then, as far as
in a city like Birmingham, I always thought we would do better, that
when the world looked at the United States and the accomplishments of
blacks in this country they would say this is the country that we need
to emulate. I feel now that one of the reasons that we are not respected
around the world is because the world sees us as better than we see
ourselves. There was no way that you could made me believe that I would
see a black mayor that is really not for black growth like we have
When I grew up, the doctors lived in my neighborhood, if there was a black doctor, a black lawyer. And all of us was poor. His house might have looked a little better but we all were together in whatever we were experiencing then. There's no way you could have told me that our mindset would be the way it is right now. I could not believe. I would never have believed that we'd have black children that are so disrespectful that their parents can't manage them. I would never have believed that in the black community that education was not a priority because that's what I grew up with. Education is the way for blacks to get out of the situation that we're in even though laws might be changed to open the doors. The only way you are going to be able to step through that door is you have to be the best educated to go through it. You have to be the best qualified. That's what we were taught. Our grandparents taught us that. Our parents taught us that. That you have always got to present yourself in a fashion, that by the way you carry yourself.
When I was young and they had the little civic clubs, they used to teach
us how to walk, young ladies how to walk, young ladies how to dress. We
had to put the book on our head. They would have oratorical contests to
teach you how to teach before a crowd.
I just talked to Charles Steele, president of SCLC, last week and I was telling about an incident that I had in Atlanta with Delta. It was a black man. I told him, "President Steele, whether you want to face it now and whether the black community want to face it, we're dealing with internal racism that I equate to the same problems that they are having in countries like Africa where one tribe want to cleanse it and kill off other blacks or in Afghanistan or any other country where you got one group of people that say, ‘We are the pure and you are not. Therefore we need to do some racial cleansing."’ I equate what we are going through in America as a race that's basically what we are going through. I believe the white establishment loves it because that puts them back in their comfort zone. They got internal strife among us. When they killed Dr. King the whole focal point was he's a spiritual leader. What they made the black community believe, you don't need anybody to lead you.
Do you see class divisions as more significant now than racial ones?
I think they are hand in hand and they have equal footing because of blacks wanting to be accepted in what's called a white man's world. They have developed more class division because of that.
It's nurtured everyday by the media, the Birmingham News, all of our TV stations they show it. They are
quick to say if you—they'll say, "A
murder in North Birmingham." Well, North Birmingham is anything
from downtown Birmingham going north, going northeast, northwest.
That's a lot of territory. Where exactly did it happen? Then
it gets blacks to say, "Well, I earn a certain income and my
white friends accept me. I don't want to be a part of that so
what I'll do is move to an area that's
predominantly white. I'll be safe from those violent
Negroes." I think they are hand in hand. One won't
be solved until the other one is solved.
What do you see is the most promising arena for solving these problems, electoral politics, the Labor Movement?
I think it's going to have to start with education first. Education first because we're going to have to do it there. We are going to have to redefine families and once we can go through an educational reform or revolution then I think we've got to go through some type of revolution as far as what is a family.
What do you mean by redefine families?
Families, from the perspective now, parents will go to work and they
strive to mimic acceptance. I've got to earn enough money so
I can live in a certain neighborhood, have X number of cars, live a
certain lifestyle and in the process of doing that, even those working
families don't have time to spend with their children.
They've been blinded by the media that say the only children
that are not disciplined are those children coming from public housing
or single family homes, when a single family home
Let me get some water.
Sure.
You were saying that you're a single parent.
Yeah, I'm a single parent. It's just that when I
decided to be a single parent I raised my child. I made sure that he was
actively involved in school, did his work. And he was disciplined. I
think when the media comes back and society defines—.
Sure.
Now we can start again. I forgot what I was saying.
Talking about single parents.
I think when society came up and they started saying the only children
that are doing so and so and so and so, single parent household. Then
single parent household was defined black female. It didn't
encompass no other race of people. Everything negative happened in our
society is because of all of these black females are out here having
these babies and they not disciplining them which was not the truth. I
think from that perspective we've got to go back and redefine
families and try to help families. I've come across
grandparents and whatever happened and they had to raise their
Once we can get the family unit back together then I think it was
corporate America that had done an awful lot to destroy our family
values from this perspective. When they tell a family member we are
relocating. You got to move with us. If it's a two parent
household, they both might not be able to move. Or you could stay here
in this community for a while then we'll move you to another
community. You didn't get the opportunity to acclimate to
where you were to feel that you had ownership or stability. I think
corporate America destabilized family values in the process of people
trying to earn a living, to provide quality of life things to their
family. I think we have to go through education system in the processes
of us saying it's not kosher for white children to be in a
classroom with black children. Then what we fall for, as far as school
desegregation, was that every school system should be equal. I question
now, you have public schools—. When I was in school I
wasn't required to take all these standardized tests to find
out where I am. Now, children feel combative in the school system
because you are constantly being tested to prove who you are. I
don't think that's necessary when at the same time
and as a state legislator, I continue to ask the question, why are
public school children tested to death? Children in private school we
don't even know what kind of test they take, if any.
Homeschoolers aren't tested at all. Yet, tell me the
university denied that private school child or denied the homeschool.
But you'll deny admittance to somebody from public school
because most of the public schools are
I think ultimately if the message given from elected officials is
different. If you could see us more unified and standing up that
everybody deserves that same opportunity regardless of where they are.
We fight, the years that I've been in the legislature, on
just funding public schools. On one side we got Republicans and one of
the most outspoken ones was this Judge Ron Moore that did the Ten
Commandments. I had to fight him tooth and nails on the house floor for
making a statement that black children don't deserve
education. Here you are, people hallelujahing your name because of the
Ten Commandments, yet you're sitting here saying one race of
children don't deserve public school education. I think the
message has got to change from Congress. I tell people all the time we
really going to have to make Congress more accountable because you got
to realize Washington DC is in the South. It's below what was
called the Mason and Dixie line. You got to understand that the reason
many of the Jim Crow laws existed was because of Congress.
Subconsciously they still nurture that concept because instead of
renewing the '65 voting rights act why didn't they
say that this is something that's a part of our Constitution
forever. That outcry has never come up. That filters down to your state
legislatures, same thing. We might be present but I see everyday when we
in session if issues that's going to help blacks and poor
whites, our Republican counterparts plus what I call a Republicrats,
those Democrats that want to be Republican but their
Do you think the Labor Movement's always going to have a role to play in this election?
Always. Because it's going to be the—. I think we are most integrated or unified in the Labor Movement.
I realize we are getting close on time here. We probably should wrap up. How do you anticipate that people are going to remember this period in history, that is the post-'60s generation that we've been talking about?
I think they are going to remember it as a state of confusion. There's no hard line message or thing. They'll remember the Jim Crow era. They'll remember the Civil Rights Movement era as they want to term it. Then once it gets to this phase, I think they'll remember that it's a time of confusion and fear. That's what this is marked by. There's no clear message coming from anybody. Everybody's afraid.
It's like I went to the Democratic leadership conversation in Denver. People were just beating around the bush on what it—the cultural aspect and role of culture in the Democratic Party. They said everything. I just stood up and said, "Look here, we got to understand. In this country they use two phrases. You're liberal or you're conservative. Be honest. Liberal means a white person that is too close to a black person. That is the buzz word." I said, "Because if it meant anything else a white person wouldn't be so fearful. If it meant that you did not go to church, well you made that decision you wouldn't be so fearful." Historically in this country, the greatest damage or penalty that any person of the white community has had to play is that they were penalized more when it dealt with people from the Middle East or if it dealt with people of Chinese descent or blacks. When those different groups were not accepted they experienced more fear by joining up with those different groups. That's what I told them. At the end of the meeting this lady came from Minnesota and said, "I'm glad you made that statement because it hit me right at home. I want to get out there and be vocal about issues whether it's dealing with the black community, Hispanic community." (I told her I got problems with them coming over illegally. The president did that on purpose to cause the confusion.) She said, "I'm afraid to speak up." She said, "You telling the truth because when they say liberal to me and I look at what I've done. The only thing that I've done that some other white hadn't done is I might have more black association. I might be speaking up more for the injustice that's being done to them." I had blacks and whites and people of Indian descent from India. One young man whose family were oriental and Asian descent, they came to me throughout the thing and they said, "We're glad you said that because it's the truth and none of us want to face it."
I think that they are going to remember this era as one where this country focused more of fear and more on confusion. I think that is by design. The people who designed it are the people who are in Washington and the people in these major corporations designed that level of fear because while we're doing that we can't focus on what they are doing. Over charging us on gas, we know it's hurting us but I can't think about it everyday. I can't think about the fact that my school system is going down because they got me worried about whether I can take a soda on a airplane or not. I think that's what's going to come out. It's like the McCartney era, during the '50s. People don't talk about much else. When they talk about, fear. That's all they talk about. I think that's what we are going to be remembered for also.
I hate to end on a pessimistic note but is there anything that you wanted to talk about that I haven't brought up?
I think we've covered the basic information real well.
Thanks so much for being generous with your time.
I appreciate just the opportunity for somebody to hear it. That's been one complaint of mine is that there is so much history for this country that needs to be uncovered so that for generations in the future somebody can look back and say, "Oh, this might fit this puzzle. It's probably one of the missing links." I think if we deal with the whole history of this country and our ups, our downs, our weaks, and our strengths, we can start correcting, if we have the will, that imperfection that is bringing this country down.
Thanks again.
END OF INTERVIEW