00:00:00JOHNSON: I call it--I think--and they call it interviewing you, and I just said
just shoot the breeze.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: But they come from all sorts of places. Duke University sent about five
different, uh--
LEWIS: --down here to talk to you?
JOHNSON: Yeah.
LEWIS: They did?
JOHNSON: Um-hm, graduates students--
[Pause in recording.]
LEWIS: This is an interview with Dr. Lyman Johnson in Louisville, Kentucky,
December 3, 1984. I'm Herb Lewis, the interviewer.
JOHNSON: Yeah.
LEWIS: --but go ahead.
[Pause in recording.]
JOHNSON: I came to Louisville in 1933. The Depression had just set in for a long
recession, and, uh, I was fortunate to get a job. I'd been unemployed for three
years. And when I came to Central, I had just left the University of
00:01:00Michigan, the graduate school. I'd spent two years in the graduate school at the
University of Michigan. When I came to Central, I found such a powerful bunch
of, uh, educators that as I look back over my career, I was fortunate to be
thrown in with a bunch of people, three-fourths of them had degrees, master's
degrees from, uh, schools like the University of Michigan, the University of
Ohio--that is Ohio State, uh, Western Reserve, and so forth, and so on. After
about three years, I became quite active not only with my teaching, uh,
assignments in the field of history, economics, government, that sort
00:02:00of thing, social studies, I became quite active in athletics, and, uh, then
about 1940, I was selected as the--[car passes by]--athletic director.
LEWIS: Now, this was Central High School in--
JOHNSON: --Central High School--
LEWIS: --what grades, nine through twelve?
JOHNSON: Nine through twelve --no, uh, ten. [car passes by] It was the
high--senior high school, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth. [car passes by] And, uh,
as I said, about 1940, I became, uh, the business manager and, uh, later
athletic director for athletics and, uh, held that job for twenty-five years.
Now, in the first, say, twelve, twelve or fourteen years, we were all in an
all-segregated situation. Uh, blacks could not play whites, you know?
00:03:00Uh, that is, whites and blacks never played.
LEWIS: Dr. Johnson, let me stop you right there. Who made that ruling? Do you
know actually--
JOHNSON: --yes--
LEWIS: --who, who--
JOHNSON: --yes.
LEWIS: --made that? Who was that?
JOHNSON: The Kentucky State Legislature, a man named Mr. Day who lived in the
eastern section of the state. He passed by Berea College, and he saw Berea
College teaching whites, Indians--American Indians, and blacks--Negroes. And
when he saw the Indians and Negroes in the classrooms with the white children,
he says, "This will never do, get them out." Berea College said, "We are a
private school, we bring money into the state, we bring money from
00:04:00all over the country into the state to help you, Kentucky people, teach these
Appalachian children that you are neglecting." They say, "You're not going to
teach these blacks and Indians with them in the state of Kentucky." And, uh, he
went on down to the state legislature trying to introduce the bill and champion
the bill through, through the legislature, and it was--it took his name, the Day
Law, the famous Day Law. In my way of calculating things, it was the worst--it
was the most vicious anti-integration law in the whole South.
LEWIS: But y--uh, what year was this?
JOHNSON: Nineteen oh-three or four, I don't know which. I, I don't remember. I
think it was 1904. That law penalized the school if the school, for
00:05:00instance Berea, if any school were found guilty of bringing blacks and whites
together in the same classroom, the school will be fined $1000, the professor or
teacher or instructor will be fined $100, and the student that goes in, the
black student goes into a white class or a white student comes into a black
class would be fined $50 a day. And every, every class he goes into was a
separate offense. So if a child had five classes in one day, he would've
committed five different offenses. And the university would have to pay a
thousand dollars a day for each one of those five offenses. And, and
00:06:00Berea could not handle it, and they carried it to the, to the state courts,
lost, carried it to the federal courts, and the famous Supreme Court decision
known as Bu-, Berea College case was handed down in 1907, and, uh, all the schools--
LEWIS: --this is going to be valuable, valuable information. I've never heard of
those, of those--
JOHNSON: All the, all the, um, schools of the state had to be sure not to let a
Negro come in any class where there were whites or any white come into a class
that was known to be a Negro school.
LEWIS: Did most of the southern states have rules of this type?
JOHNSON: Not as vicious. They did not fine up to a thousa--look, a thousand
dollars a--Berea College, a thousand dollars a day for one student
00:07:00for one period. The second period would be a, a second offense. If they had two
students coming in there, you see at, at that rate if they had fifty, uh--well,
let's just say ten black students on the campus for a week, that, that could
almost close up Berea.
LEWIS: --put them out of business, wouldn't it?
JOHNSON: Put them out of business. What Berea did was to put the Negroes out and
said, "Now, we've done the best we could, we fought it in court, we lost, we
lost, we lost. What we're going to do is to build you a separate school, and
we'll call it Lincoln Institute out here near, uh,"--
LEWIS: --Simpsonville.
JOHNSON: --"Simpsonville halfway between the most popular city in the state and
your state capitol so that when you pass by, you'll see your, your, your monument"--
LEWIS: --was that--
JOHNSON: --"to segregation."
LEWIS: --was that a college or a secondary school in the beginning?
00:08:00
JOHNSON: It was a secondary school. It never--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --got up to the college level, never got up to the college level. But
Berea College would take you--if you came from these one little towns that, that
did not have a decent school, public school, they would take you in the first
grade. They'd take you all the way through high school and then take you through
college, and that was a great contribution to the education of the poor little
white children as well as blacks up there in, in, in Appalachia. They don't have
many decent schools up there now. To amount to anything.
LEWIS: --I remember when all the black kids went to Lincoln.
JOHNSON: The state--according to that law, the state had to--the state was
willing to pay tuition, room and board for the black kids that came from little
towns up in the eastern part of the state where they didn't have more than about
five little black kids up there who wanted to go to high school, who,
00:09:00uh, who were colle--uh, high school students, high school age. They would send
them down to Lincoln Institute because the state law said, "Don't send them to
the public school up, uh, in, in those little towns, and up in those hill
sections where you do have a pretense at a high school." Even the one, one-room
schools up there couldn't take one black student back up there because of that.
And incidentally just to cover a lot of territory, a lot of time territory, um,
Supreme Court decision, 1907, Berea, you shall not teach any--and no school
shall teach the two races in the same classroom, 1907, and that was not changed
until they've heard of a fellow named Lyman T. Johnson who was a
00:10:00teacher at Central High School who went to the University of Kentucky in 1949
for summer school, for--1948 for summer school work. And, uh, they refused to
admit him, and he said, "Why should you not admit"--talking about myself--"why
should you not admit me?" I have already a master's degree from the University
of Michigan, and I hadn't hurt the University of Michigan. What in the hell
could I do wrong at the university--this little joint here in Kentucky that
doesn't even--hardly is recognized by the school that I have a master's degree
from, and I had already taken, uh, two summer sessions with credits--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --decent credits at the University of Wisconsin, and here this little
pip-squeak, uh, joint here at Lexington is telling me that I can't go
00:11:00to school here, and I said, "Why not?" and they said, "Aren't you a Negro?
Aren't you vio--won't you be violating the Day Law?" I said, "The Day Law is a
state law, and the federal constitution says that I'm entitled to all the rights
and privileges of citizens in several states. Now, uh, uh, a citizen of the
state, uh, of the state of Kentucky has a right to go to the best school you got
in the state and this--you think you're the best school in the state, and I
wanna go here." They said, "But you're not going here." I took them to court,
and one year later, 1949, I won the case in federal court. And when I came back
the next year, that is 1949--'48 they put me out, 1949 when I went in on the
campus for summer school work, thirty-one black students matriculating.
00:12:00
LEWIS: Were you the first black to enter UK?
JOHNSON: That's what the record shows.
LEWIS: Hmm.
JOHNSON: That's what--
LEWIS: --had you tried any of the other southern schools?
JOHNSON: No, no I didn't. I, I left it to some black in the other schools to, to
take care of their own states.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: Uh, in 1949, thirty-one black students went to the University of
Kentucky summer school, and they've been there ever since. And every
state--every college in the state of Kentucky said, "We're not going to be sued
like them, we're not going to have to eat salt out of the hands of these, these
people. We're going to open up," and all the schools across the state--Berea
then reopened its doors to blacks. The University of Louisville, uh, came on,
uh, all Eastern, Western, uh, all the schools, private, Centre--Centre--
00:13:00
LEWIS: --what was the title of that case, do you remember? Johnson v. the State?
JOHNSON: I always--when I was teaching, uh, in my class, I'd always refer to the
case as the Kentucky--uh, University of Kentucky case. But if you go to the
archive--not the archive, to the law library at, uh Harvard University, you'd
see it written up as the Lyman T. Johnson case. That's right. That's the name of
it. That's the official name of it, Lyman T. Johnson. If you want it further,
it's lom--Lyman T. Johnson v. the University of Kentucky. But, uh, it's, it's,
it's--in, in the lawbooks it's, uh, my case.
LEWIS: Well, did they, uh--were the athletic teams, uh, integrated then at the--
JOHNSON: No, sir, no sir--
LEWIS: -----------(??)----------
JOHNSON: That's--that's the buildup to what I'm talking about. From the time, I
was, uh--up until my, my, my suit, you could not play. They
00:14:00interpreted that law to mean you could not play a high school team with one
black student on it.
LEWIS: I told you I went to Male High in Louisville.
JOHNSON: Yeah.
LEWIS: We had a game with Wade High from Toledo, Ohio. They came down to play us
one night, they had several blacks, but they let them sit on the benches.
JOHNSON: That's right.
LEWIS: And we couldn't understand who made that decision--
JOHNSON: --one thousand dollars a day.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: That--
LEWIS: --oh.
JOHNSON: --they interpreted that, that devilish law to mean even in athletics.
They had, uh, they had, uh, a music-making series in the public schools where
the students would come down to Memorial Auditorium, maybe one or two days a
month and listen to beautiful music, beautiful orchestras, and whatnot.
00:15:00
LEWIS: You're referring to the Kentucky students?
JOHNSON: I'm talking about Louisville students.
LEWIS: Oh.
JOHNSON: And, and, and, and the black students couldn't come, and after a while
they f--they, they figured that if they put them up in the balcony, they could
come and sit in the balcony and, and, and, and, and that would--they could get
by with that. And I'd tell my kids, "Don't go. If you can't go in that front
door, if you can't sit on the fronts--front--if you can't take--if there's a
vacant seat on the first row--first floor, if you can't get that--if you can't
get that vacant seat, don't you go, don't you go up in that balcony." All right,
now, let's get back to the, to the athletic situation. Uh, beginning with
the--my crack of the Day Law in 1949, uh, Central was such a big
00:16:00school. We had maybe twelve or fifteen hundred students there and we, out of
that--out of that big number, we could, we could put fifty-five boys in football
uniforms at any game.
LEWIS: Now, that was the Louisville city school--
JOHNSON: --the Louisville Central--
LEWIS: --the only one for blacks?
JOHNSON: --Louisville Central High School, all-black school.
LEWIS: And the county kids couldn't come there?
JOHNSON: No.
LEWIS: Um-hm. They had to go to, uh, Lincoln?
JOHNSON: Oh, no, no, no. You--you're talking about the blacks?
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: Oh no.
LEWIS: Where would the black--
JOHNSON: No.
LEWIS: --county kids go?
JOHNSON: They came to Central.
LEWIS: Oh, they did?
JOHNSON: When, when white people started all this fuss about, "We don't want our
children bused," we said, "What in the hell are you talking about?" No, you--
LEWIS: --no, I'm talking back, back in the forties.
JOHNSON: I'm talking about, I'm, I'm talking about the, the--what are these
white people talking about saying they didn't want their little white kids bused
when back in the forties, back in the thirties, back in the twenties,
00:17:00and back in there--uh, back to 1907--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --Day Law.
LEWIS: --um-hm--
JOHNSON: People from Harrods Creek were bused in to Central High School.
LEWIS: I suppose the county school board paid their way to, to come to Central?
JOHNSON: Paid their tuition.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: Paid their tuition and, and then let them ge-, get in the best way they could.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: The peo--black kids, uh, were bused in from out near Okolona. Uh, there
was a big batch of kids out, uh, down, uh, uh, Cane Run Road way, way back down
in that section. Those kids came in on the milk truck--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --get in the best way you can to Central. Blacks, black kids, there was
no high schools around for what--for, for, uh, for blacks except Central--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --and, of course, Lincoln Institute, and Lincoln, Lincoln.
00:18:00Now, um, 1954, the Supreme Court handed down the decision that segregation,
there is--you see--wait a minute--back in 1896, a devilish Supreme Court
decision said, "There shall--there may be"--they didn't mandate it, but they
said, "There may be separation of the races if the facilities are equal"--
LEWIS: --I remember that.
JOHNSON: --"separate but equal." That was the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896.
Now, separate but equal, and the white people across the South always insisted
that the law says "there shall be separate facilities," and they
forgot--(Johnson laughs)--"but equal."
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And it was always separate and never equal. So in 1954, the
00:19:00Supreme Court--Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision said,
"There is no place in our society in public facilities for the separation upon
the basis of race, and no longer shall it be permitted." Then all of this stuff
had to, had to come tumbling down. And, um, as a, uh, uh, as I was about to say,
in 1949, we were talking to the Catholic schools here in the city and, uh, '49.
In 1950, the athletic director at Saint X called me and said, "Lyman,
00:20:00I don't see why we shouldn't play Central, why not?" and we played one game of
basketball. We had to get around the Day Law somehow because my suit had won the
right to go to college.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And it specifically said the University of Kentucky. Now, if you really
want to apply that, I've got to sue all the other schools because the decision
simply said University of Kentucky. It didn't make a blanket. So then in 1950,
we played a game of basketball, our boys, Central, dressed and, and put their
overcoats and whatnot, not on, uh, and went over Saint X gym and just
00:21:00were standing around the door and around the walls watching the Saint X white
boys practice. And the white boys said, uh, "Can you hit the baskets like we
do?"--(laughs)--and the black boys jumped out there and started throwing the
ball in the basket and running them for, uh--somebody was blowing a whistle and,
and there wa, there was a game going on between all-white Saint X and all-black
Central High.
LEWIS: Who won the game, do you remember?
JOHNSON: Oh, we--that wasn't, that wasn't--that--there's no record of, of who,
who, what the score was or who won or whatnot and all that. It is just the fact
that the two played, and so--uh, the principal at Central High School was named
Atwood S. Wilson.
LEWIS: I met him.
JOHNSON: And Mr. Wilson was so much on, on needles. They thought he--he thought
he's going to get fired by the superintendent when the--when he--if,
00:22:00if he admitted that he knew that his boys were over there, then he's violating
the law. If he didn't admit it, then he wasn't efficient, he didn't know what
was going on in his own school.
LEWIS: You didn't get permission from the superintendent--
JOHNSON: --so what he did--
LEWIS: --or he wasn't--yeah.
JOHNSON: --was to call up the superintendent and said, "Uh, I saw some of my
boys going out with someone after, after school. Uh, about, uh, three-thirty in
the afternoon, I saw some of my boys. They were--they looked like they were
dressed in, in, in basketball uniforms and whatnot. Uh, some of them went out
one door, and some of them went out another, and, uh, and they just sauntered on
down the street. And someone called back over here and told me that they are
down now playing at, uh, Saint X's gym playing against Saint X." And the
superintendent said, "Did you authorize that?" "No, I didn't know a thing about
it, but I'm letting you know as soon as I find out about it." "Yeah,
00:23:00well, if I hear, if I hear of anything like this going on, well, you, you, you,
you look for another job now, all right?" That died down. Nothing ever, ever was
heard of it and so this, uh, athletic director says, "Lyman, let's, let's put on
a full-scale, uh, football game in the fall," and I said, "Okay." I got, I got
the coach to get them--uh, the boys ready, and we went over and played at Male
High School out in their backyard.
LEWIS: Who was your coach, King?
JOHNSON: Yeah. Willy Lee King.
LEWIS: I knew him.
JOHNSON: And we played against, uh, Saint X, and the afternoon--no, the next
day's morning paper says, "The first game between blacks and whites in the
city--in the state was played yesterday afternoon, and the score ended just like
it should have, seven to seven." That was the first year. Now, the
00:24:00next year, Flaget said, "We--well, Saint X is, is not going to outdo us, we'll
play you." Now, for '50--that first game is '50; the next one, uh, I had two
white teams in '52; and in '53, we added Trinity. And in '54 we added, uh, two
schools over in New Albany--no, one school, um, Clarksville I believe. What is,
what is the name of the little school over there in Clarksville? Uh, I forget, a
Catholic school. Now, the interesting thing is we could play all these four
Catholic schools, but we couldn't play the non-Catholic--the public schools.
Here we are, a part of the school system and couldn't play Male,
00:25:00Shawnee, Manual, uh, Ahrens, the four white schools. We could not play public
schools, and we are a public school.
LEWIS: Well, at that time, were blacks and whites on the same team in Indiana?
JOHNSON: Oh no.
LEWIS: --in In-
JOHNSON: --oh yeah--
LEWIS: --in Indiana?
JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.
LEWIS: Um-hm, um-hm.
JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah. Indiana wa--uh, Indiana, uh, never really had segregation
laws. They'd just build the school right in the middle of, uh,--(laughs)--a
bunch of black people.--(Lewis laughs)--And then they--that was their
neighborhood school and then they'd be assigned to their neighborhood schools.
LEWIS: Hmm.
JOHNSON: And that's how they had segregation in Indiana.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: All these northern schools, they were very--there were just as
segregationist as the southern people, but they had a, had a better way of, of,
of--a nicer way of doing it. They build a real pretty school more
00:26:00nearly equal, you see, more nearly equal to the white schools. Build it right in
the center of a black community and, and, and the blacks would take pride in
going to their neighborhood school because they knew, uh, that was the
situation. In playing basketball--no, basketball and football all the way
through the forties and the thirties when I was athletic director, our school, I
imagine we sometimes could, uh, suit up fifty-five boys, which would be five
full teams to play a little school like Lynch that didn't have more than
fifteen, uh, uh, boys in the high school, black boys in the black school. And
it, it, it just wasn't fair for that little team, a little team from
00:27:00Bowling Green to come up here to play Central, and here comes this great, big,
uh, battalion of young bucks coming out to play, and here are all these scrawny,
little, uh, fellas. They had--the coach in, in these little towns had to take
whatever they could get--
LEWIS: --yeah.
JOHNSON: --and threw them out there against our beef.
LEWIS: Well, let's go back just a little bit.
JOHNSON: All right.
LEWIS: Before the deseg came along, all right, where did you get your schedule?
Who, who all did you play? I can't think--
JOHNSON: --well I'm, I'm just, just mentioning. Now when, when we really
recognized that we were too big, too big a school, we had too big, uh, uh, a
student body from which to select a real good team to play Hopkinsville and
Bowling Green, what we did then was--
LEWIS: You mean the black schools from Bowling Green--
JOHNSON: --yeah,--
LEWIS: --and Hoptown?
JOHNSON: --um-hm.
LEWIS: Where's Dunbar?
JOHNSON: Dunbar, now, uh, that's in Lexington. Now, Dunbar put up a
00:28:00pretty good fight for us.
LEWIS: And Bate, I saw Bate play one night in Danville.
JOHNSON: Yeah. Well, now, Danville, uh, Danville had a, a very small school.
Danville, Owensboro, um, Henderson, we'd play them just, uh, just because--uh, a
courtesy gesture. But to answer your question, where did--when--how did we
really get a real team to, to match up against Central? I knew personally the
principal, the coach, the business manager at Dunbar High School; in, in, uh,
Gary, Indiana; over in, uh, uh, Indianapolis; over in, uh, Chicago, there were
two schools in Chicago we played; there were two schools in St. Louis; there's
one school in, uh, Hop--uh, in Knoxville, Austin High School;
00:29:00one--two schools in Nashville, one was, uh, Pearl High School; two schools in
Memphis; one school in--[phone rings]--Birmingham, Alabama. [Pause in
recording.] Okay. Now, you see, I couldn't play, I couldn't play my boys
against, uh, Male and Manual, Shawnee, Ahrens because of, uh, the Day Law back
in the thirties and forties. Now, when Central kept on getting bigger and bigger
and having, uh, such a powerful football team, in order to have a decent game, I
had to go to all of these cities I've just mentioned. We would go to
00:30:00Vashon High School in St. Louis one year, and Vashon would come here the next year.
LEWIS: How would you travel, in cars or--
JOHNSON: --buses.
LEWIS: --buses?
JOHNSON: --Greyhound buses. Now, when, when Male played Shawnee--see Shawnee was
an all-white school then. When Male played Shawnee, the only bus transportation
they had would be to the athletic field from the school right here in the city.
When I played St. Louis, I had to, uh--they gave us our transportation out
there, but next year, I would have to bring their team here. I'd have to pay
their transportation, I'd have to pay for five meals for their team, I'd have to
have one or two nights' lodging for their team. And, and our money
00:31:00always, always went for transportations, meal--
LEWIS: --what kind of crowds did you have, what kind of attendance?
JOHNSON: Um, well, to us, we, we would have a big crowd, but to a Male, uh,
Male, uh, Manual game--oh, Male, uh, any game Male played or any game Manual
played, we'd have about one-fifth the attendance that they would have, which
means that they had money--they just took in money. Male and Manual just, just
dominated the whole, whole state--
LEWIS: I used to--I played with Male High School--
JOHNSON: --yeah, they, they, they had the money and they had every--all the
facilities. They had the facilities and, and our boys would just
00:32:00--oh, they'd just cry--
LEWIS: --well, did you--
JOHNSON: -- sometimes.
LEWIS: --did it make its own way, or did you have to supplement it somehow?
LEWIS: We were always barely in debt, always, and the board of education chided
us and I, I, I went out there one night and I said, "You're a bunch of rascals.
You know we don't have any money to, to finance our, our boys because they can't
go to a school that will attract a big enough crowd." You see, if we played
Bowling Green, wouldn't anybody come to see us beat up Bro--Bowling Green.
JOHNSON: Unh-uh.
JOHNSON: I, I--they just wouldn't come. That wasn't fair.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: But if we're bring, uh, Austin High School from Knoxville here, they
would come, but we'd have to take the all the money we're paid--we, we got to
pay the transportation.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: It, it just didn't make sense. It didn't make sense. Now, I was the
business manager, I had to go through the business of telling the
00:33:00coach. When the coaches said, "Lyman, I need some new helmets," I say, "Well,
dammit, we don't have any money." He said, "Well, I'm not going to go send my
boys out on the field, get their heads busted in and then--and, and, and wearing
these old, worn-out helmets, shoulder pads, uh, hip pads. I need some new, new
shoes, need, need some shoes Lyman. We're fixing to go out there to play this
afternoon." And I said, "Well, go down to Sutcliffe's and get you some stuff,
get--go get them, go down. I don't know how in the hell we're going to pay for
them, but, but go ahead, go ahead." And then at the end of the year, end of the
month, or whatnot, Sutcliffe would send me a great, big bill over there and
threaten to take us to the board of education and have us, uh--and, uh, I'd go
down to Sutcliffe's, and I knew the people at Sutcliffe. I said, "Come on now,
look, you know the situation as well as I do, uh, come on, we got, we've got to
get some more." Instead of paying the man, --(laughs)--I'd confidence
00:34:00them into them have--(Lewis laughs)--new stuff for the next the week, next week.
And then somebody would get his leg banged up and I have to send them to some
doctor and then the doctor would send me a hell of a bill and, uh--oh,
I--actually, it was aggravating. It was aggravating to me as the athletic
go-between between the principal and the coach.
LEWIS: --did the board of education pay you an extra salary for being athletic director?
JOHNSON: At first, when Male and Manual coaches, business managers, athletic
directors were getting reasonable stipends running all the way from $500 to
$2000 additional pay. I can remember when one of the coaches at--one of the
assistant coaches at Male was getting over a thousand dollars a season.
00:35:00
LEWIS: Who paid that, do you know?
JOHNSON: They paid it out of, out of all that, uh, rake in from, from these games--
LEWIS: --yeah.
JOHNSON: --out of, out of their funds. But see, we didn't have any to pay. Our
assistant was making $200 for eight-week service, $200. I can remember that.
LEWIS: Was that from the board of education?
JOHNSON: No, out of our meager funds. The board--
LEWIS: Hmm.
JOHNSON: --of education said, "If you, if you can't--if you don't take it in at
the gate, you, uh, do without."
LEWIS: That brings me to a point. I went to school in Boston University one
summer, and up there, we were told that they had a free gate to all the ball
games, that the, the money to support the athletic program came out of taxes.
JOHNSON: Yeah.
LEWIS: How do you feel about that?
JOHNSON: That's, that's what it should be. That's what it should be. It should
be. I made this point all along. I said, "Mr.--" uh--who was the superintendent?
LEWIS: Carmichael?
00:36:00
JOHNSON: --Carmichael? I said, "Mr. Carmichael, it is absolutely not right for
a--" I said, "Forget the point of black people now. It is not right for a kid
who goes to Shawnee High School, a white kid who goes to Shawnee High School
that doesn't take in the money that Male and Manual take in. It's not right for
the kid who goes to, uh, Ahrens or to," uh, at, uh, Atherton was--had had then
become a board--uh, uh, boys and girls school, and boys, they were having
athletic stuff then, uh, football, basketball. I said, "It's not fair for a
white kid that goes to one of those three schools to go out in rags because they
don't take money in. They were not taking in any more money than Central was
taking in, those three schools. But Male and Manual was taking in
00:37:00all--they had a, had a run on the, on the athletic, uh, clientele, and you'd go
to see a Male game or a Manual game, but these other games you wouldn't go."
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: I said, "Now, if a child goes to one of these three schools, w--a white
kid. Let's forget about race now. If a kid goes to one of these three schools,
he will not have the quality of uniforms that if he--if they are fortunate
enough to go to one of these other two schools," I said, "And I know the
athletic director at Male and the athletic director at, uh, Manual and the whole
coaching staff at both places, they go out and recruit all across the city to
get first-rate players to come to those two schools. And, therefore, when they
go out for togs, for uniforms, they can wear the best there is." The
00:38:00uniforms that Male and Manual boys have are, uh, are worth about twice what
these other three schools have. And then--now if you bring in
Central--(laughs)--even, even those three white schools I was using as
illustrations as not being able to keep up with Male and Manual, Central wasn't
even able to keep up with those three schools. So therefore there's--
LEWIS: Let me ask you this. Did you have a program in, uh, track, golf,
swimming, any of those--
JOHNSON: No swimming. Uh, swimming came on, uh, even after I left Central. Uh--
LEWIS: You all didn't have a--
JOHNSON: --but--
LEWIS: --pool there, didn't you?
JOHNSON: We didn't have a pool and, and, and, and we couldn't, couldn't,
couldn't swim in the white pools.
LEWIS: Even after school's out and whatever?
JOHNSON: Uh, no time.
LEWIS: Oh.
JOHNSON: Now, uh, not even the public--uh, well, they had some, some pools down
in the west end for Negroes, but, uh, they were not up to par, they
00:39:00were not up to standard. No.
LEWIS: But you had a track team though?
JOHNSON: What is that?
LEWIS: Track?
JOHNSON: Oh yeah. Now, on the track team, uh, we got out there, and did a little
practicing out there in the backyard at old Cen--at, at the Central down at, uh,
Twelfth Street.
LEWIS: Did you have track?
JOHNSON: Oh, we, we ran around, uh, through the backyard. We tried our best to
get them to do something about Central's, uh, track. We didn't have, we didn't
have an athletic, uh, stadium, we didn't have anything down there except a big,
uh, backyard and so we did everything out on our big backyard. Uh, even when we
started this, uh, integration on a big scale, uh, 1975, Judge Gordon's decision,
they went down there and bought up some more ground that our--when, when,
when my bunch, my principal and my athletic director--I mean, uh,
00:40:00coach and, and, uh, and myself, we begged the board of education to, uh, at
least give us enough to make a track field. They wouldn't do it until Judge
Gordon said, "Put some white people down there at, at, at Twelfth and Chestnut."
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And then the board of education went down there and bought up some
ground and, and, and built them a track field.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: They didn't do it until they put some white people down there--
LEWIS: Well, let me ask you this. If you'd rather not answer some of these
questions, just say so, but back in those days when you were the purchasing
agent, so to speak, for the school, how did you, uh, buy that equipment? Was it
on bids? Did you have to write specifications for it, or you just went to some
place and bought it?
JOHNSON: At first, uh, the board of education just said, uh, "Don't buy anything
on the name of the board of education. Don't buy anything on the name
00:41:00of the board of education. Now, buy whatever you can pay for," and that's the
way we bought it until, um, about 19--uh, somewhere about mid-fifties, about
1950, the board then began to see that there were three white schools who
couldn't keep up with Male and Manual and then, uh--three white schools. I
mentioned them, Ahrens, Shawnee, uh, Atherton.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: Three white schools couldn't keep up with Male and Manual, and my
theory was beginning to show up that it wasn't fair, it wasn't equal educational
opportunity even among white people for, for two schools to be wearing uniforms
worth twice as much as these two. Then you add on the one black
00:42:00school, which was Central and then the board said, "Well, if you don't take it
up at the gate, we will give you a--we will subsidize you to a certain amount."
[car passes by] "We'll subsidize you, we'll subsi-, Now, you get as much as you
can and then we will subsidize you up to a certain amount." And from that time
on, uh, we had to, had to make everything by bids because, you see, there was a
certain amount of public funds going into, uh, that subsidy--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --was going into the athletic funds and, uh--well, not exactly into the
fund but in--into a place where the, the fund could get its hands on it. And
that made it, uh, public money, and therefore, we had to take public bids on
that and, uh, we went out to the board of education and put in our, our bid
along with all the other schools. And I can remember when Male and
00:43:00Manual objected very seriously to, to that process because they were afraid
that, uh, the superintendent will say, "Now, we're going to buy a helmet that
costs twenty-two dollars. Every school have to wear the same price helmet."
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And Male just said, "No, we'll buy whatever we please. We got money, we
got money, we got money in the bank account. We got savings there. We, we--" Oh,
they had all sorts of. They raised, uh--were able to raise hell like everything.
But the, the superintendent said, "No, we are going to have a uniform thing,"
and that's when we had to ma--had, had to make--take bids.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And then we'd pay as much as we could. Each, each one of the schools
paid as much as it could and, and then at the end of the season, uh, see how far
you were in debt and then the board of education may pay you an allotment to
help bail you out.
LEWIS: But you always came out at the end of the year?
JOHNSON: Yeah.
LEWIS: You had to balance it, didn't you? You couldn't carry the
00:44:00deficit from one year to the next?
JOHNSON: You're not supposed to.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: Central was always in debt. (laughs)
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: Central was -----------(??) in debt. (laughs)
LEWIS: Oh.
JOHNSON: Yeah.
LEWIS: I'm just sort of going to jump around here--
JOHNSON: All right--
LEWIS: --in a minute.
JOHNSON: --let's--
LEWIS: Yeah--let's--[Pause in recording.] When you were at Central, did you ever
have, uh, Muhammad Ali as a student?
JOHNSON: Um, Muhammad Ali was never in my classroom, but I knew him quite, uh,
quite, uh, well. Uh, and then we--he did--he was nice--he was one of the most
lovable chaps when he was--he wasn't conceited. He was, he was bashful.
LEWIS: He was?
JOHNSON: He was bashful, and sometimes, uh, uh, we would try to play him up, and
he'd just, uh, play around, and he was such a--he was a chummy sort of a little fella.
LEWIS: Well, was he, uh,--
00:45:00
JOHNSON: --and--
LEWIS: --was he, uh, interested in athletics other than boxing?
JOHNSON: No. No.
LEWIS: He didn't, didn't participate?
JOHNSON: No, but, uh, it was quite interesting to see him. Uh, in, in the tenth
and eleventh grade, he lived way down about twenty blocks away from Central. He
came to Central. He would run, he would jog all the way from home to school
every morning. People would offer him rides, "Oh, go ahead, go ahead, no, go
ahead, go ahead, we'll, I'm having a good time. I'm--This is my exercise."
LEWIS: Yeah?
JOHNSON: And he'd run to school every, every morning. Um, he came around--he, he
tells this himself. He says he was assigned to Mr. Lyman Johnson's class for
world history. He came up a little late, and when he got there, he saw other
students with pencils and notebooks and papers. And everybody 's
00:46:00seated, and everybody was, uh, was scuffling, looked like they were just, just
going about their business of trying to work out some sort of lesson and said
he--he says he looked through the window, looked through the little, uh, glass
in the door there and, and, and he said,--(laughs)--"Um, no, that, that isn't
for Cassius. No," and he went back down there to the office and, and finagled
with the counselor down there to get him in some other class. He says he went
late on, on the first day, and the kids were already--he said it looked like
they're about two months ahead of him to begin with, and, and they'd only been
in there ten minutes. He says, "No, no, I'm not, I'm not going to study like
that. That isn't for me." And so he tells it that he dodged going to my class. Yeah.
LEWIS: Oh.
JOHNSON: Yeah.
LEWIS: Well, can you remember--[Pause in recording.]
JOHNSON: --guinea pig so to speak? Uh, the UofL wanted to do the
00:47:00right thing. They wanted to bring in some black players, but they also were
overly cautious. They wanted to be sure that whoever came, uh, would be able to,
sort of, carry himself and not have to be waiting for the, uh, coach and the
staff out there to, to help him get a alo-, get along with the white boys. So,
uh, they came down, they were very cautious, very careful. They came down and
talked to the, uh, head coach at Central and with the athletic director and
said, "Now, pick us out a real good fellow who can play football but who has a,
a, a temperament that he can--he won't fly off the first time someone calls him
some ugly name. He, he will kind of keep his shirt on and, and take a little.
Now, we don't want him to take it forever, but, uh, at least be
00:48:00knowing that he's going to be the first one out." So we sent one, one boy out,
and in practice, that was one of the best tackles you could have. He was, he was
an excellent fellow in football--in--in the high school football as a tackle.
But when he got out there in practice and put him on one of those dummies, and
he'd rear back and grab that old thing, just--and looked like he's just going to
tear it off the wall. Then put him in a scrimmage, and he'd look up at the white
boy, that he's practicing with, and the coach said, "It looks like he's just
saying to the white boy, 'Will you please lie down because I'm going to knock
you down?'" (laughs) And, and, and, and the coach--the, the head coach at, at,
uh, at Louisville--the UofL said, "We can't use him. We want him
00:49:00doing--like tackle this, and all, all he's going to run against and play against
would be white boys. And if he can't--if he, if he's going to have to beg
apology when he knocks a white boy down and then, then, then go around
apologizing for it, hell, we can't use him."
LEWIS: Hmm.
JOHNSON: "Send us somebody who can--who'll knock them down." Uh, and so the next
year, we sent Leonard Lyles up, and Leonard, uh--
LEWIS: I know what he did.
JOHNSON: Yeah, he was pretty good at, at getting around and--
LEWIS: Dr. Johnson, let me ask you this. Before deseg, well, were there any such
things as conferences for you-all or leagues?
JOHNSON: Yeah. Now, there was the, uh, counterpart of the Kentucky High School
Athletic Association. We called ours the Kentucky Negro High School Athletic
League. So that is what operated during the thirties and forties and
00:50:00finally, uh, folded up when we were admitted to the Kentucky High School
Athletic Association. Uh, which--
LEWIS: Was that structured--
JOHNSON: --we got into--
LEWIS: --about the same as the board of control is now?
JOHNSON: Uh, practically, practically the same setup that the, uh, white
association was, we had. You see, that was, uh, a segregated pattern in
everything. The KEA, Kentucky Education Association was paralleled on a smaller
scale by the Kentucky Negro Education Association. KEA was white; KNEA was
black. Now, uh, that's right down through the state associations then the county
and the city associations and then also applied to the athletic, uh, associations.
LEWIS: Yeah, all right. (clears throat) Back in those days, were your coaches
ever--have the--did they ever have their salaries supplemented by
00:51:00any, any organization?
JOHNSON: No sir, no sir. No sir.
LEWIS: Did you have a strong boosters club?
JOHNSON: No sir.
LEWIS: Alumni association?
JOHNSON: No sir. It was,--[car passes by]--it was a love--the love of, uh--the
thing that carried them in the thirties, the thing that carried them in the
thirties was the love of, uh, working with the young people that carried the
coaches. They would work just as hard as anybody, and they produced some of the
best teams. Our base--our basketball team played against counterpart, that is,
black schools across the country who couldn't play with the whites, and we won
championships, national championships in basketball.
00:52:00
LEWIS: I was in the school in Indiana with Kean, and I talked to him about some
of those things.
JOHNSON: And, uh, and, uh, uh--in--when I started working with athletics at
Central, it was that, uh, missionary spirit that I had. That got me in with the
rest of them, and I can remember when the principal told us, "Now, you go out
and you can charge whatever you please at the gate, and what--when you pay off
all your bills, then you can divide up the rest "--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --"and that'll be your salary."
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And I can remember when at the end of the year, they didn't fay--pay
off all the bills, and the principal told us, "Well, don't bring those bills in
here. You didn't make them in the name of the board of education, didn't make
them in the name of school. Now, go in your pockets and pay for them." And
instead of getting a salary--in the thirties, instead of getting
00:53:00salaries, they quite often were taking money that they made as schoolteachers
and putting it into the athletic fund to pay off the bills.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And in the forties, I remember I started working as the, the, the--the
school, not the board, but the school offered me $200 a year for being the
athletic director for football, baseball, uh, track, and anything else. And the
coach, I think the coach got $350 a year. His assistant, the two assistant
coaches got $200 a year, and that was the first year we got any pay. I got 200,
two assistant coaches got 200--
LEWIS: You know, I was--
JOHNSON: --and at the, at the--
LEWIS: --yeah?
JOHNSON: --same time that we were in--that, that, that our assistant--I mean our
head coach in all the fields, all the fields, King was a master; baseball,
basketball, track--when he was getting $350 a year, the football, the
00:54:00football head coach at Male was getting $2000, and Manual's, I think, they were
making, uh, uh, about the same thing.
LEWIS: Well, now, you're familiar with the athletic board of control and how it functions.
JOHNSON: Yes sir.
LEWIS: What are your thoughts? Is it a satisfactory organization as it is, or
could it be changed or improved?
JOHNSON: I think that has been an evolution in the upgrading of the services
rendered by the board of control. I think it is better now than it's ever been.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: I--uh, I'm not in the business now, and I'm looking at it from, uh,
outside just looking in on it. And from what I can pick up, I think it is better
now than it's ever been. Uh, at the--they had quite a bit of
00:55:00difficulty at first when, uh, when they were making the transition, uh, from the
segregated, uh, outfit. You see that, that amount of separation of the races has
been a, a, a gimmick and a, and a nemesis to the whole business of, uh, social
living in this country. So we get all hung up on, on is it black or white? Now,
who gives a damn? But, uh, some people do give a damn. And, uh, at the--when the
transition was being made, they didn't know how to incorporate, they didn't know
how to let the black association go out of existence. And the white association
pick up all these, uh, formerly black schools, which were beginning
00:56:00about--between '50 and '56, 1950 and '56. Between, uh--during that period, the
black schools were folding up, and the black students were beginning to trickle
into the white schools and then there would be white boys--I mean, uh, black
boys on, uh, predominantly white teams. And the association had to take the team
as a whole, which meant the asso--the, uh, the athletic, uh, board of control
had to, had to figure out how to not make the thing, uh, conspicuous that there
were blacks.
LEWIS: I don't know whether they have any black members now or not or whether
there had been some in the past, but do you feel that, uh, the membership should
be expanded enough to get some black representive in there?
JOHNSON: There ought to be some blacks on, on, uh, o-, on the board.
00:57:00There ought to be some blacks. To make it a normal situation, there ought to be
blacks in everything you had at the--
LEWIS: Has anybody ever expressed this view?
JOHNSON: Oh yeah, yes, yes. You see at first, you had all-white board of control
and here comes the--at first, the, the, the, the all-black school didn't fold up
at--in one, one--a-, any one period, one date. They folded up gradually, and
there, there were remnants of, uh, black schools after, uh, the board of control
took over the whole business. And so, uh, here comes a, a black team up to play
and a decision is made, the umpires, all white umpires, all, uh,
00:58:00coaches, everybody running the show at, uh, at the place all white, and, uh,
even the white coaches, we had difficulty when we were making the transition,
uh, we had difficulty in getting, uh, referees who could actually--
LEWIS: --they weren't qualified?
JOHNSON: There were qualified for white teams. Or if you got them to come down
and referee a bunch of blacks. But whites have a tendency, they just, they just
don't know how to be fair. They've been unfair so long, it's just been in the
tradition. It's just the, the tradition--
LEWIS: That's all behind us now though isn't it--
JOHNSON: No, no, no, no, no, no.
LEWIS: But we have a world of --
JOHNSON: --no, no--
LEWIS: --black --
JOHNSON: --no.
LEWIS: --officials.
JOHNSON: Yeah, I know, but, but at first, we had a heck of a hard time trying to
get that board of athletic control to allow blacks to officiate games
00:59:00where there'd be predominantly all whites on the floor. But you ought always to
have at least one or two--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --black faces out there so that the black kid won't be com-, uh, won't
be completely intimidated by a sea whiteness all around him.
LEWIS: What's your thought on, uh, girls in athletics?
JOHNSON: Now, that's ano--that's a, that's a question that I've not--I'm, I'm an
old fella, I was brought up in the old school, old philosophy of,
uh--(laughs)--I, I, I want the little skirts to, to, to remain sweet and lovely
and nice, and, and they, they don't want that. They, they, they want a new day,
and I'm willing to let them have their way. Uh, I think, uh, I think we are
straining at something that I, I think after about ten years, we are
01:00:00going to find out that we've gone overboard on trying to make, make, uh,
everything equal. Girls are just not equal. Boys are not equal to girls.
LEWIS: Can you remember back when they had a girls' state basketball tournament?
Ashland, the school from Ashland won it one year. The school down in, uh,
southern Kentucky named Woodburn that had a good record?
JOHNSON: How back--how far back was that?
LEWIS: That must have been in, uh, the twenties and thirties.
JOHNSON: No sir, no, no. Uh, I, I, I can't go back that far with it. But, uh,
all through the thirties and forties, there were no, uh--the girls who--most
they worked up to would be, uh, cheerleaders.
LEWIS: Hmm. Do you think that's a good, a good experience for girls, or is it
getting out of hand or, or what can you, uh, say about--
01:01:00
JOHNSON: --yeah.
LEWIS: --cheerleading?
JOHNSON: Uh, uh, uh, the, uh, the ERA people will chew me up if I tell you
exactly what I think, and I've, I've almost gone as far as I ought to go for the
record. Uh, you know, uh, I, I, I had, I had so many females in my family, my
mother of course, my sisters and wife and, and daughter. I'll do anything I can
for them, but I don't know whether I want to see any of my close relatives, uh,
or dear loved ones out there all dressed up in football uniform. (laughs) I just
can't see it.
LEWIS: You know that's a big thing for these small high schools down in the
country. If you can--
JOHNSON: E-, e--b--
LEWIS: --be a cheerleader--
JOHNSON: --yeah.
LEWIS: --that's status--
JOHNSON: And, and if you, if you insist on what I think the women are clamoring
for, I think you're going to wreck the financial undergirding of
01:02:00athletics completely because you just can't afford to spend all your money
getting an acade-, uh, uh, an, an athletic equipment equal--facility, equal,
separate for boys and girls. You just can't do it. You can't have two gyms and
two this and two that and two--you just can't have it, and I don't know how you
can u-, u-, use the same. You would split it up. It means that the boys will
have to give up, and the girls will have to take a lot before we can get this
thing adjusted. Um, I really think, I really think that as far as girls are, are
physically able, you ought to develop their capabilities, but I don't
01:03:00think you ought to make men out of them.
LEWIS: Another thought about the athletic board of control, most of those
members are principals. Do you feel just because a man ha--is a principal, maybe
he's taught academic subjects all through and now he's principal, is there any
better qualified person in the school system then than the principal that can be
on the athletic board of control?
JOHNSON: Uh, yes, the, uh, athletic director or the head coach could be perhaps
a better person for being on the job than some principals. Now, some principals
have, have had all of those jobs--
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: --and, and, and the carryover and being principal gives them, uh, uh,
three different, uh, backgrounds of experience, and therefore, they'd be very
well qualified. But, uh, sometimes, uh, the principals, I, I--I'm,
01:04:00I'm, I'm--I've had my gripes with principals. Too often, they become czars.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: And when they become czars, they, they, they, they, they lose their
perspective of what the thing is all about. And I think, I think some principals
are, are, are just too, too much of, uh--
LEWIS: Well, uh, what do you think, uh, about athletics in the future for high
school? Can you comment on that?
JOHNSON: Yes, sir. I have seen--now, I was a--an academic student. I mean, uh,
not athletic if, if, if you can get the--get the difference. I was--I, I, I put
my emphasis on athletic--I mean on, on academics. Uh, but when I became the
director of athletics, I had to see things from the athletic point of
01:05:00view. Many a student would not have finished high school if they--if you hadn't
had the avenue to, uh, gain some name for themselves in athletics. So I think if
you can use athletics as a means of, of, uh, enticing more students to go to
school, to go and get their lessons over in the academic department. See now,
the coach and I could work this thing--all the coaches. When I say the coach, I
mean all the coaches, tennis coach, you know, swimming coach, or whatever or,
whatnot, uh, we could work that pretty well. "If you don't get my lesson, the
coach won't let you play." Now, the coach comes to me, "Lyman, get a
01:06:00little extra coaching in your classroom, so that he will, uh, qualify." Uh, yes
I think, uh, athletics plays a wonderful, uh, part in the educative process,
and, uh, we ought to, uh, do as much as we can to keep it under control but to
promote athletics as, as--right down the line, it makes some mighty fine citizens.
LEWIS: See, we now have championships in basketball, football, track, tennis,
swimming, gymnastics, and it's growing all the time it seems. Now, no telling
what they'll add next. Do you think we have enough?
JOHNSON: No sir.
LEWIS: Or it should have been more diversified?
JOHNSON: Uh, uh, let it be diversified. Uh, you see, after all, uh, it's not
fair if, if a child is not interested in--[car passes by]--these four or five
things you mentioned.
LEWIS: Um-hm, um-hm.
JOHNSON: But he has a peculiar talent for some one thing over here.
01:07:00[car passes by] I think it's the, it's the responsibility of the community, [car
passes by] it's the responsibility specifically of the education, uh, uh,
education departments, the, the, the schools, the principals, the teachers, and
whatnot to draw out of every child what i-, what is his or her peculiar talent.
And, uh, when I was on the board of education, now, I don't know whether you
knew that or not. I was--
LEWIS: --yeah, I remember.
JOHNSON: --I was on the set--on, on the Jefferson County Board of Education
after I had passed seventy-one years of age.
LEWIS: Is Mr. Van still in there then?
JOHNSON: Who?
LEWIS: Van Hoose?
JOHNSON: No, no. He--
LEWIS: --he -----------(??)--
JOHNSON: --left, he left in '75, and I didn't go on until '78, so he was off for
three years--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --before I got on. But, uh, in that in--in--in that process, I, I
maintained that, uh, if some students don't want, uh, this or this or
01:08:00this or this, [car passes by] but likes, uh, the performing arts--have you been
to this performing arts school out here, uh, near Manual, the old--
LEWIS: --I've been in the building, I know.
JOHNSON: --the old school?
LEWIS: Yeah, I know where it is, um-hm.
JOHNSON: They came very near not having that thing.
LEWIS: I know.
JOHNSON: For the simple reason that the east end people wanted it--if you're
going to have it, let's have--that, that cultural affair--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --let's put it back out here in the east end.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And the people down in the west end said, "If you don't want it down
there for us blue-collar people, we're going to vote against it."
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: These people say, "If you don't bring it out there, we're going to vote
against it," and I was, uh, the deciding vote. And I said,--(laughs)--"Let's,
let's put it on--Mr. Grayson put it in down in neutral ground." Now, uh, the
point for having the performing arts, that's for those students who have a
talent for dancing, singing, dramatics, and whatnot.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: They'll never show up on a football field. You'd laugh at them. Maybe
they climb up there and tripping across the--(both laugh)--maybe
01:09:00putting on ballet at a, at a football game--
LEWIS: --yeah.
JOHNSON: --basketball game, but still--
LEWIS: --uh.
JOHNSON: --they have talents just as well as the football player, so develop the talents.
LEWIS: Sure.
JOHNSON: Uh, that is an illustration of my philosophy.
LEWIS: You know the girls championships in basketball were eliminated back in
1932. What do you suppose caused them to, uh, uh, quit having state basketball
tournaments? Now, they've started back again now, you know? They've been going
several years. Had you ever thought about that?
JOHNSON: No, I never--uh, I, I didn't know why they did it. I can remember when
I--you see, see, I was in high school back in those--in, in the twenties.
LEWIS: Did you-all have a girls' team?
JOHNSON: Yes. But, uh, this was, uh, in the, in, in the Negro setup.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: And, uh, in my little town down in Tennessee, uh, we just had the
teams, uh, playing among themselves, you know, in the same school
01:10:00intra-, intramural. We, we, we never had inter-, interscholastic competition and
so I didn't know what the, what the whites were doing--
LEWIS: Are you familiar with the basketball bill? Do you know it as such? In
''76, I think, it was passed and that was to force the school to have a girls'
team if they had a boys' team.
JOHNSON: Uh, yes, I know about, uh, the--that movement, and that was what I was
alluding to a few minutes ago when I said, I think you, you--you're going to
wreck the thing, you're going to wreck, you're going to wreck the whole process.
Of course, that's what the women said, "We intend to, we intend to wreck their
little, uh, uh, playhouse that you menfolk have had all these years and, and,
and we want our daughters to have--and our girls to have the same opportunities
that the boys had." And I maintain that, that you ought to have
01:11:00facilities to develop the talents of the two and not have identical.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: I don't think it's, I don't think--I think you're straining in a net
when you, uh, claim that you've just got to have the same thing for boys and girls.
[Pause in recording.]
LEWIS: Uh, Dr. Johnson, what are the qualities of a coach? Uh, he should have a
well-coached team? Uh, he should have a winning team, he should be a good
influence on boys and girls, and he also should be a good teacher? What do you
expect first out of your coach?
JOHNSON: I expect, uh, first he ought to be a good teacher. I think that--
LEWIS: You mean in the--
JOHNSON: I think,--
LEWIS: --classroom situation?
JOHNSON: --I think, I think he ought to be a good classroom teacher. I think
that we ought not, we ought not to get away from the main purpose of
01:12:00going to school, and that is to learn how to read, write, and count. And if a
teacher can't do those things, all of these other things are window dressings
that, uh, will not suffice. The children will still graduate--we have too many
athletes who graduate from high school and some even float through college, and
when they come out, they can't sign their own names--
LEWIS: They--
JOHNSON: --they can't read a thing, and I think we have robbed them of their
youth at a time when they should have been learning how to read, write and
count. So then, I put, first of all, a teacher. He ought to be a teacher first.
Uh, maybe I'm too much of an academician on that subject. But next, uh, I think
he ought to be a person who can inspire the children or the, the players to, to
be first-rate citizens, fair, and, and honest, willing to give all
01:13:00they have on the field, in the game but to win honestly, mainly, honestly.
LEWIS: Do you think there's too much emphasis on winning now?
JOHNSON: Yes sir. I think when you put too much emphasis on winning, then the
player is likely to be out there--if he's a basketball player, he is likely to
be slipping down to the gym and practicing, practicing, putting the ball in the
basket. If he is a football player, he's out there practicing how to hit the
goal and how to catch the pass. He is interested in those things and, and the
algebra teacher or the English teacher or the math or the science teacher,
history teacher, or whatnot, uh, up in the classroom is just
01:14:00wondering, "Why can't I get this guy to, to sit down and spend a half an hour
getting his homework?" He hasn't got time to do homework because he's--and, and
really he's too tired when he comes in from the athletic field. If the coach
has--is too much of a slave driver when that guy comes in off the field, looks
over there and sees an algebra book, and sees the bed, he's going to hit the bed
and tell the algebra lesson to scram. So, uh, first of all, he ought to be a
good teacher. Second, he ought to be one who can inspire the children to be
first-rate citizens, and win if you can, but get your lessons first. If you,
if you--if you can't get your lessons, don't come out here on my
01:15:00athletic field. That's the answer, and that's the way I see it.
LEWIS: Very often, coaches do a little proselytizing. Are you familiar with some
of that?
JOHNSON: Oh, oh yes. Uh, that was, uh, one of the most devilish things that, uh,
I, I, I accused Male and Manual of doing. When we did decide, when we the
society did decide after 1954, the United States Supreme Court decision Brown v.
Board of Education--everybody knows about the '54 decision--uh, beginning about
'56, it began to trickle down to the white schools that they had to take some
black students. Now, before it became mandatory or before the--th-, there was a
strict, uh, districting--school geographic districting, uh, here in,
01:16:00in Louisville, Male and Manual coaches would go all around in the black
community wherever they found--wherever they heard of a, a, a, a, a, a
promising, young athlete. If he was real good, they tried him to get him to come
to either Male or Manual, don't go to Central. Here's what they would tell the
boys. They'd call the mother and father, they'd go down from there, they're ever
so patronizing. Oh, it was a, it was good salesmanship for a white person to
walk into a Negro community and, and, uh, want to speak with mother and father
and, "Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones--" Uh, the before this, they've been
01:17:00calling them auntie and uncle and all that jive, you know, but now, "Mrs. Jones,
your son is so, so promising. If he goes, he's, he's--oh, we--we've noticed him
in, in junior high school, and, and he's such a good basketball player. If he
goes to Central, he's not good enough to play with those good stars that they
have at Central. He would just sit on the bench. But if he comes to Male--
LEWIS: ------(??)--------
JOHNSON: --he'll--we'll, we'll make him starter, he'll be a starter at Male.
He'd be on the bench, he'd sit on the bench for three years at Central. Come out
to Male. Everybody will say even if he plays at Central--if he comes out to
Manual or Male everybody will say, 'You know, he must be a real good player
because he's playing right along there with the white boys. If he were a bad
player, uh, the white coach wouldn't let him play, all right.'" They
01:18:00recruited the very best of the athletes to go to Male and Manual in those first
four or five years beginning in '50--oh, '56, '56, ['5]7, and ['5]8. Uh, best
illustration of what I'm talking about are, uh, um, Sherman Lewis and, uh,
McPherson. They helped Manual get, uh, state honor--state championship. Those
two players, they were the stars, but they, they were actually--their parents
were actually told, "If these two boys go to Central, they'll hardly make the
Central team, Central got so much talent." See the jive in the, in the--
LEWIS: Sherman Lewis went to Michigan State, didn't he?
JOHNSON: Yeah.
LEWIS: Where did McPherson go?
JOHNSON: I don't know. I don't know. Now, uh, at the very time that
01:19:00they were going around recruiting, the superintendent had pa-, had passed out an
order that no teacher, no coach, no person connected with this--on, on the, on
the school payroll should go out recruiting. And here were these two schools
recruiting right along, and, and they called in our coach and said he was
recruiting when he was trying to tell some Negro parent, "Don't send your kid
out to Central--I mean to, to Male, send them to me." And they called in our
coach and dressed him down and said, "If we catch you recruiting anymore, we're
going to have you fired."
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And, and, and I spoke. I said,"Mr., Mr. Carmichael, for God's sake, go
down to Male and tell them that." And after I got to be the assistant principal
at Parkland Junior High School--
LEWIS: They named that school for you, didn't they? Huh? I didn't
01:20:00know that though, those two--
JOHNSON: Well, yeah. (Lewis clears throat) Uh, but when I was an assistant
principal down there, a certain person recruiting for Male used to come at
recess time and at gym practice time and sit around in the gym and sit around
in--on the athletic field and, and, and, and, and recruit boys for Male High
School. And, and, and, uh, and the coach at Central called me up and said,
"Lyman, what are you doing about it? You know it's a violation of the law for
the man to come around and just around and, and then talk with the players and,
and try to entice them ninth graders to come to, to Male." He said, "What, what
are you doing about it? You, you, you are in a position now where you can--you,
you knew what was going on all along."
LEWIS: Give me a brief comment about the awards that are given to athletes.
Usually, they get a sweater and a letter or whatever else, uh, were
01:21:00they, uh, given that they shouldn't have received?
JOHNSON: Well, I don't think, uh, I knew of anything that they received. Uh, uh,
Negro players never got anything, uh, that they didn't deserve. I only knew--I
only heard of what was going on, uh, for white players. Many of the white--many
of the white businesspeople would, uh, subsidize. They would have ways of laundering--
LEWIS: --I know--
JOHNSON: --money.
LEWIS: --I know of a case where the boosters club--
JOHNSON: --yeah?
LEWIS: --gave a wristwatch to each one of the graduating seniors.
JOHNSON: --they know how--
LEWIS: --but they couldn't take that watch, so they put it in the vault until
graduation day and then they gave it to them.
JOHNSON: They, they have ways of laundering that stuff. The Negro boys never got
in on that. Negro boys never got on it until they got into those schools.
01:22:00
LEWIS: Yeah?
JOHNSON: Now, Sherman Lewis, uh, may have gotten quite a bit of a little, a
little sidekick and McPherson and whatnot, uh, but, uh, no, the--I don't know of
any, any of the black students who, uh--there were no business concerns
interested. Bausch and Lomb did, uh, give something for the, uh,--
LEWIS: --science award.
JOHNSON: --yeah, academic students, but that was publicly done and only after graduation.
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: But, but--
LEWIS: --we won't--
JOHNSON: --but--
LEWIS: --we won't take but a couple more--
JOHNSON: --well--
LEWIS: --of this. Um, crowd control, that appears to be a problem in many--
JOHNSON: --yeah.
LEWIS: --places.
JOHNSON: Um--
LEWIS: Comment on that for me.
JOHNSON: That was, that was a headache to me. I remember that first game, that
first game between, uh, us and--between Central and, and, and, uh,
01:23:00Xavier, Saint Xavier, football game out at the, uh, old Ma-, Male High. Where
was that, Maxwell?
LEWIS: Maxwell Field.
JOHNSON: Out at Maxwell, Maxwell Field. Uh, it was my year, we alternate, uh,
when you have two-year contracts, we alternate. Uh, you manage this year, and
I'll manage next year, and so forth. Uh, it was my year to manage the, uh, game,
and, uh, I remember the athletic manager for Saint X came over to me right one
time--right about middle of the game or middle of the--I would say about, uh,
middle--about the end of the first quarter of the football game. Uh, he came up,
and he said, "Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson, look at them coming over the fence.
Now, you see everyone who comes over the fence, and that he's on--we
01:24:00don't, we don't, we don't get his money, we can't split his money." I said,
"Brother, I'm doing the best I can. I'm doing the best I can." I said, "I can't,
I can't put a policeman there at, at every place, but I, I, I, I--you know
auxiliary police." Well, the next year, we played, it was his year to manage the
game, and we played up at, uh, up on the hill, up at Manual stadium, and what is
that, uh?
LEWIS: DuPont Manual.
JOHNSON: DuPont Manual stadium, and I went around to him. I said,
"Brother--(laughs) they're coming over the fence." He says, "I can't help it.
(laughs) I can't help it." I said, "I couldn't help it last year either." I
said, "Do you--(laughs)--you understand? I, I know you can." Oh, they just came
over the fence, just came over the fence like everyone. Um, crowd
01:25:00control, what can you do when the teams get into a little hassle down on the
field and then next and next and next and next? And, and worst of all--you see I
went through that process. I was still manager in, in, in, in late fifties and
early sixties. I was still athletic director down at Central. Twenty-five years
remember that I had that job. Uh, at that time, it was practically all-black
Central against all-white something else, XYZ school, and it was a mess trying
to get the white parents and, uh, the fans and the white--and the blacks, keep
them separated. They could get more fistfights going, uh, that didn't have
anything to do with the game.
01:26:00
LEWIS: Um-hm.
JOHNSON: And, now, how, how do you break them up? And, and a Negro manager just
caught hell trying to manage white people. If you, if you people just quit
calling us niggers and these people will quit calling you damn bastards or
whatnot, see? You just--and, and it, it had nothing to do with the game. The
game is going on, and, and here was a fistfight in, in--
LEWIS: --you think that has diminished somewhat now?
JOHNSON: Uh, yes. I think it's, it's, uh--that the, the original cause is, is
fading out. The original cause was here was an all-black stadium on one side and
all white on that side, and when they went down to the lunchroom, when it went
down to the, uh, concession counters, that's where the-, they, they mixed it up
with each other. Uh, they--the general trend toward integration minimizes
having, uh, enough blacks to feel like they can whip any bunch of
01:27:00whites. You see when you are--when you are all out there about yourself, you're
not going to start any fight. Now, that's all there is to it. Because, you know,
you're not going to have half a dozen--whites not going to get into a batch of
blacks to get all beat up, and no black is gonna go over into an all-white batch
to get beat up. Just it--it's--it has a tendency to, to neutralize the
probability for disorder. Um, but in my day, I had, I had a heck of a time
trying to get the audience or the crowds to, to behave themselves. And quite
often even when it would be--when we'd be playing an all Negro, uh, outfit, I'd
still have to have my police to, to make my, my fellow blacks behave.
01:28:00When they--
LEWIS: --well, Dr. Johnson,--
JOHNSON: --when they got a little booze, when they got a little booze it's
almost--they forget about the game--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --when they start drinking,--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --when they start drinking. Uh, you step on my toe;--
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: --there's a fistfight.
LEWIS: Well, this has been a wonderful interview. Just wonder if you have any,
uh, comments or suggestions or observations you'd like to make here at the end?
JOHNSON: I would like to see athletics explored for all its worth. It has a
great drawing, great, uh, appeal for students, and I think that we could use
this for a, a genuine education of our young people. It is so fine
01:29:00when a coach can say, "Now if you, if you indulge in dope you don't play on my
team," and, and, and if the coach can be rigid and yet compassionate. If a coach
can say to a child who comes from a home where there's no facility and all,
practically nothing, just poverty-stricken, if the coach can say, "Come on,
fella, I, I--I've got a place for you," and he can make the child come out
of--and I've seen this happen. Some of our players have come out of some of the
most wretched situations and finally--
LEWIS: --make it.
JOHNSON: Like, like, uh, Muhammad Ali come back and say, "I made it, you can
make it."
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: "Now, you may not make a million dollars." I've heard, uh, Muhammad say
that any number of times. "Now, you may not, may not make a million
01:30:00dollars, but you don't need to just give your life away." Many a child has, has
come out of hovels, and, and made it because some coach inspired the child, boys
and girls alike. Like look at, uh, Wilma Rudolph.
LEWIS: Yeah.
JOHNSON: --if I hadn't' been for athletics, I, I expect she'd been walking
around on, on, uh--in a wheelchair--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --rolling around on a wheelchair--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --or, or with crutches--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --all of her life. There are so many, so many have been brought out
that I have a high regard for the coaches who really are interested in the
development of the oncoming generation of youngsters. I, as a fellow who, who
specialized in Greek and Latin in high school and college myself--
LEWIS: --is that you?
JOHNSON: --myself, to turn out to be such an advocate of the athletic program,--
01:31:00
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --uh, it shows that I must have been concerned--
LEWIS: --um-hm.
JOHNSON: --in the very thing I'm talking about. It has an appeal, and fortunate
is the coach--
LEWIS: --yeah--
JOHNSON: --who recognizes that this is a tool that he has to hold over the head
of the young people to make them come up to their potential.
LEWIS: Thank you very much.
[End of interview.]
