Interview with Lyman T. Johnson, July 12th, 1987

WEATHERS: Mr. Johnson, could you state your name and date and place of birth, please?

JOHNSON: My name is Lyman T. Johnson. I was born in Columbia, Tennessee, June twelfth, 1906.

WEATHERS: Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

[Pause in recording.]

WEATHERS: The first question I'd like to ask you about--could you tell me what you recall about the issues and events that were involved in integrating the University of Kentucky?

JOHNSON: Well, from my own point of view, back in, uh, the 1940s, there were a bunch of young educators, mainly, but civil rights leaders, in 00:01:00particular, beginning to grow out of being young men, growing into middle age and we were concerned about how to get some black people into the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, or any other so-called white colleges and universities, as a matter of right on their part. And, uh, we knew, first of all--all of, uh--university people ourselves, we had--some had PhDs, some had master's, uh. All of us had at least, uh, bachelor's degrees, from, 00:02:00uh, colleges across the country. And, uh--(clears his throat)--we knew the qualifications for being a first-rate student at one of these, uh, colleges would certainly call for a lot of stamina and, uh, good morals. So therefore, we searched around to find--see if we could find some young person just finishing high school who would be interested in going to the, uh--one, one of these universities. But we--he would--he or she would have to go through a process of li--uh, litigation, in order to, uh, win the, uh, opportunity to go to the school. So, uh, beginning about 1940 we scouted around. And finally, about 1942, we came up with one young person, who was very talented, uh, 00:03:00finishing high school. But he decided that, if he were to go to a Southern university as a kind of a test case and, uh, white professors, uh, decided to f--t-to wash him out, flunk him out, he would be a--his opportunities of getting into one of the Northern colleges, uh, would be diminished. So he said, uh, no, if he's going to college and he's going to a so-called white college, he'd rather go up North. And then, if he, if he got flunked out up there, he might assume that he just wasn't quite prepared for the rigorous, uh, course that they'd have there and he wouldn't blame the white professor. But if 00:04:00he went to one of these Southern colleges, uh, he might get flunked out and then he'd swear it was because, "Those old white teachers di-didn't want me in the first place and they triggered out on me, and washed me out." So he, he declined. That pushed us behind a little bit. And then we tried somebody else. And that person came up with the same excuse. Then the war, World War II, was coming right on--r--was bearing down on the country. And, and many of our group, uh, were scattered, when we were drafted into the Army, or into the service. I went to the Navy, spent two years. Some of us--when the war was over, some of--got back to the same trick, uh, same little ta--self-appointed task, 1946. And then we, uh, we found a young lady, who, uh, was teaching at one 00:05:00of the junior high schools here in Louisville. And she would take the summer course. If we won the case, she'd take a s-summer course, at either U. of K. or U. of L. And, uh, when we were just about ready to drop our brief and got ready to go into court, the Louisville Defender said that this school had found a new plaintiff, and showed the picture of this woman. And it was a glamorous picture, on the front page. And she was all so surprised. She said, "Loo-look, uh, I didn't go into this for glamour. I went into this thing for the benefit of education. And, uh, uh, uh, I can stand public--I don't want all this publicity. I'll pull out." Well, that put the thing off another little while. 00:06:00And we searched around. And in '48, some of the committee--and I remember we were growing older and ol--we were ge--we were no longer, really, young men and young women. Uh, we were gettin' to be real middle-aged people, by, by '48. And, uh, one of the person said--looked over and he said--I was chairman of the group--said, uh, "Lyman, aren't you pushing these young people a little too hard? Are you criticizing them for not havin' any guts--not willin' to stand up and take a chance and go and defy these Southern white professors? Why, these are young people and they, they don't have a-a-all that--you, uh--you're, uh, embarrassin' them. You're criticizing them. You're just too hard on them." And one said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are a veteran. And you could 00:07:00go--you're a teacher. Uh, you would be off in the summertime. You could take a course up there at the University of Kentucky, or the University of Louisville--and make the government pay for your expenses. Now, why don't you go? Are you afraid of these so-called Southern white professors?" I said, "Oh, no, no, no. Now, don't get the idea I'm afraid. I don't nec--it's just a matter of--in my age and my condition and my having gotten about as much train--academic training as is necessary for the job that I have, uh, teaching at Central High School. Uh, I don't feel called upon." "Come on, Lyman. Come on. You're just making excuses. Now, you--you're just as afraid to go." I said, "Don't ever accuse me of being afraid." They said, "Okay. Then we got a candidate." I said, "But won't it look silly? Won't, won't it, won't 00:08:00it be apparent that, all these six, eight, or ten years we've been working on this thing, I was working for myself, I was chairman of the group from the very beginning and it turns out that now, uh, uh, I'm working for me?" And they said, "We take the blame. We'll take the, the responsibility for having selected the candidate. You're the candidate. An-and, uh, you prepare to go. And we will be responsible for who selected you to go." That is the way I was chosen to go as the plaintiff. And that was in '48. The rest of it is history.

WEATHERS: Mr. Johnson, why did you feel compelled to act to integrate the University of Kentucky? What was the compelling force?

JOHNSON: I have always been a believer in having a piece of the pie. I think that our country is the finest country in the world. I think it is the--has the greatest opportunities in the world. I think, uh, could be better, should be better, it's got to be better. But it's not going to be any better than what we make it be. So what we've got to do is to look around and see where are the imperfections in our government, pick them out one at a time, and 00:10:00tackle it, see if we can eradicate this. As long as they had only one college here in the state for black people, specifically, Kentucky State College--the state legislature would put as much money as they had to spare at the so-called white colleges and whatever they had left they'd rake off the crumbs and send 'em down to Frankfort. Well, that wasn't fair. That wasn't fair by any means. I went over there to Frankfort one day to--uh, to Kentucky State College. As a matter of fact, I--many a, many a summer I have taught summer school at Kentucky State College--uh, teachers who--professors who hadn't quite 00:11:00finished their, uh, doctoral work and they want to go off to finish that work. Well, I went over to Kentucky State, went down to the dining room to have dinner--or lunch. And then the next day I went up to Lexington to have dinner or lunch. But they wouldn't let, wouldn't let Negroes in the place. Well, I want to know what's the reason. I'm a taxpayer. I'm payin' money to support both schools. If I can't have lunch a-a-at the University of Kentucky, I want to know what's the reason. I'm payin' for the place. It's my school as much as it is anybody else. If I go out to the U. of L., I can't eat out there on the campus, why? Why? I'm entitled to. Now, when I speak of myself, why I cannot, 00:12:00I have in mind the whole class action process of black students as a group. So whenever I speak of myself, I'm speaking of all black students. And they are entitled to anything anybody else is entitled to, as a matter of right and privilege. We pay our taxes. We want our share of the benefits. And I've always been a stickler for trying to get my share of the pie. That's all. When I say my share, class action. I want--uh, I want all groups to get their share of the pie. Now, uh, you have to, have to be very careful about the way I 00:13:00describe the situation. I am just as much interested in the poor whites, "P. O." in quotation marks--I don't like that word, that term. But it's used in some books. Some people refer to a bunch of whites as poor whites. I am just as much interested in them as I am in poor blacks. They have just as much right to go to the first vacant (??) places, if they can qualify. Same thing about blacks, if they can qualify. So then, when you see me working like, uh, uh, uh, the devil to improve the conditions for black folk, don't accuse me of being a black racist-- only interested in getting black people ahead. I don't want black people to be ahead of white people. I just want to be behind white 00:14:00people. I want each individual to go as far as he can go or she can go, as a matter of right.

WEATHERS: All right. Mr. Johnson, uh, in addition to the Day Law, which--uh, by which the Kentucky legislature had, in effect, legislated separate schools for blacks and whites, that is, uh, higher education institutions included, were there other barriers, uh, other things that you considered barriers to black students attending the University of Kentucky?

JOHNSON: Well, uh, the, the, the basic law of the state, state constitution. The state constitution said that there should be public education but 00:15:00there shall be separate schools for the white race and the colored. Uh, now, that's the constitution. Now, you can make a law within the, uh, realm of the constitution and, of course, the law will be constitutional. So when they ma--passed the Day Law, the Day Law just simply refined and specified how they meant to have separate institutions for black and white. And they took it out on Berea College. Berea had black students and it had some American 00:16:00Indians and many of the poor whites from up in Appalachia and a few students from around, uh, the country otherwise. But mainly, Berea College was for talented but, uh, underprivileged students, who were willin' to have good conduct, behave themselves, study, get their lesson, be respectful and courteous to their, uh, fellow students, and, uh, and their professors, uh, and, and be willin' to do some work on the campus to help pay for their education. Everybody must work. It's a part of the ethic, to teach them the dignity of 00:17:00work. Somebody's got to work in the kitchen. Somebody's got to work over in the dormitories, cleanin', cleanin'. And, uh, somebody's got to be janitor. Somebody going to cut the grass. Somebody's go--everything. The work's got to be done. An-an-and, uh, if you don't want to do your, uh, uh, y-your share of the work, then you don't have a place at Berea. With those stipulations, uh, covered, there was no regulation against color or race or religion. And, uh, Mr. Day, a member of the state legislature, passed by there one day and saw these black students over there, right along with the rest of the students, saw a (??)--a bunch of Indians were mixing in there with the blacks and the whites. 00:18:00And, he said "Hey, look, look here. What, what's going on here?" And he went right on down to the legislature and, uh, prevailed upon the legislature to pass the Day Law. The Day Law simply said, uh, there shall not be any teaching of, uh, of blacks and whites in the same classroom; whoever violates this regulation, if a black student goes into a class for whites or a white goes into a class for blacks, he'll be fined, I think, maybe fifty dollars a day, the professor, maybe 100 dollars a day, the university, 1,000 dollars a day. Every different class that a student goes into was a separate offense. Now, if a student had four classes and went to all four of those classes and 00:19:00he--a-a-and Berea was found guilty, in one day there'd be a fine of 1,000 dollars for the first, second, third--4,000 dollars. And they couldn't stand that, day after day after day, year after year after year. So then they started--they said, "Okay, you win." Carried the case to the Supreme Court, United States Supreme Court, in 1907. The law was passed in 1904, I think. Nineteen oh seven, this--uh, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that the, uh, uh, college had to abide by the state law. And that applied until I came walking down the pike, in 1949. And I challenged on the basis that, although the Supreme Court, working on the, on the precedent of the, uh, Plessy 00:20:00versus Ferguson case, 1896, that case said you may separate the races in public accommodations but they must--accommodations must be equal. Now, I won my case on the point that, although the constitution said they, they must be separate, the Supreme Court 1896 decision against, against black people did throw in one little clause that helped you out. And that is, but the separate facilities must be equal. And there wasn't any way in the world for the University of Kentucky to convince any sane person that the facilities down at Frankfort 00:21:00were equal to the facilities offered at the University of Kentucky. On that basis, I won my case. And, uh, and the Day Law was thrown out completely. Because the state didn't have, really, enough money to fin-finance its present list of colleges and universities. How could they go down the list and get a dual system? You don't want to, you don't want to reduce the quality that isn--is now up to par, at the University of Kentucky. How do you--? Uh, y-you don't want to reduce the quality, which isn't up to par, at the University of Kentucky, by tryin' to establish another university, say at 00:22:00Frankfort, equal to what you have at the University of--uh, you just don't have enough money in the state. You'd break the state, trying to have a dual system of equal accommodation. I won my case on that basis.

WEATHERS: I see. Uh, let me ask you another question. You mentioned that, when you began thinking about, uh, trying to identify some, some young person to be the test case, uh, that there was some apprehension on their part about whether they could be successful at a predominantly--at a, at a white institution.

JOHNSON: Southern white institution--

WEATHERS: --all right. Uh--

JOHNSON: --that had not been conditioned to accept black students. Go ahead.

WEATHERS: A--that's what I wanted to ask you. How was the University 00:23:00of Kentucky perceived by black citizens, from your point of view?

JOHNSON: Before I went up there?

WEATHERS: Yes.

JOHNSON: Oh, it was, it was very much like, uh, uh, any other, any other, uh, white, uh--white-only facility. Uh, I don't know whether you are young enough. Uh, I'm, I'm afraid that your, your sons here are too young to experience the ugliness of wanting a drink of water and looking up over, uh, uh, uh, a fountain, on a real hot day, out at a, at a public place, and see the word "White only." But in my day, you just look up and see a sign, "White only," "Blacks only," a-a-and continue to be thirsty. That's all. You just, uh, just got used to it. That's all. Uh, uh, uh, that's typical. Uh, "White only," and you'd go on. Uh, uh, go over and get your drink, get your head 00:24:00beaten. That's all. Uh, uh, "Hey, nigger, what you doin' over here?" Bam! Somebody slapped your head up against the wall--somebody--not the police, uh, just any, a-a-a-any white person. "Uh, nigger, what you doin' here? Uh, tha--uh, uh, can't you read? Say's white folk." Maybe you wanted to go to the toilet and there a bi-big sign up there sayin' "White only." How many times did I have to--? Uh, I'd have my daughter, right here on--in Louisville, right down on Main S--out on the main thoroughfare, which was then Fourth Street. And my daughter would look up. And she's about seven or eight years of age and she'd say, "Poppa, I got to go to the bathroom." I say, "Well, uh, okay, darlin', okay. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, in a minute, in a minute, in a minute." Go on down another block or two. "Poppa, I got to go to the bathroom." I say, "Yeah, yeah. Well, we, we on our way. W-w-we on the way, on the way, on the way." Now, a white 00:25:00kid could have gone into the hotel, into a restaurant, coulda gone into a ten-cent store and used the restroom, restroom, come on out, buy or not buy anything at the store and go on. An-an-and the little girl would be, uh, relieved an-an-and feel rather comfortable. But my little daughter had to wait until I could go, say, six to seven blocks, to get down into a black neighborhood, where I could go to a public--uh, so-some, uh, public place, restaurant or whatnot, and use the restroom there. Now, that wasn't right! That wasn't right! And I'm not goin' to, I'm not going to let anybody convince me that I was wrong in, in raising hell about it. That's all. I would--I had no business havin' a little kid, if I wasn't gonna look out for her and give her the best treatment I could. And, uh, when the superintendent--uh, uh, I was teaching in a city school. When the ci--when the superintendent told me so--"Look, Mr. Johnson, you--you've fought these segregation cases 00:26:00long enough. Now if you take this case--" Uh, I don't know what we were working on. He said, "If you keep messin' around this thing, if you lose, you better know where you can get ya another job." I said, "Mr. Superintendent, if I win, where in the hell will that leave you?" I won. So I didn't need to go out and eat supper out of his hand. I won. And that's--that's been my life. Almost every case I tried, I won. And I'm cocky about it. Many of the black people who went right along--many of the schoolteachers who worked right along with me, uh, uh, and taught school next door to me said, "Lyman, you--we like what you're doin'. Y-you, you, you're doin' a marvelous job out there. But, but we can't help you but so much, because you're gonna get fired, man! The way y--the way 00:27:00you ca--way you talk to the superintendent, way you talk to the judge, way you talk to the chief of poli--uh, man, you're gonna, you--they're gonna put you down under the jail. A-and when they, when they close in on you, then they're gonna say we put you up to it. So you, you've got to understand. Now, we're your friends and everything bu-but we're going to stay a mile away from ya because--(clears his throat)--we don't want to lose our job." Uh, the superintendent would tell me, if I don't win, "Get another job." These other people took that as a message to them, "Don't help me win." Because if they help me and I didn't win, they'd lose their jobs too. So one, one teacher, uh, added a little irony to it. He said, "And you'll have to admit, Lyman, we're using our heads." I said, "Like, what?" He said, "You see, if you lose, you'll 00:28:00be the only one fired, if you win, we get as much out of it as you do. So, so, so you, uh, uh, you understand why, uh, we can't help you. We'll get as much out of it as you do, if you win. If you lose, we've got nothin' to lose."

WEATHERS: Uh--

JOHNSON: --I said, "Yeah, that's, that's the trouble. That's the reason why I can't get more accomplished. I can't get more people to have spunk and courage and optimism. You just don't have faith." I said, "This is a wonderful country." So a bunch of white people were heckling me one day, at a public meeting. They said, "Hey! Nigger, if you don't like this country, why don't you leave it? If you don't like Louisville, leave it! Love it or leave it." And I 00:29:00yelled back over--see, I was right there at the microphone. I yell--I said, "Let me tell these people out here, who are acting like nitwits--" Took a lotta nerve to stand up and talk to--at a public rally, a-and five or six hu-hundred people right up there in front of me, a-a-a-a-and call 'em nitwits. I said, "Let me tell ya. Let me tell ya. If ever you see me down at my house, climbed up on the roof, patchin' a leak in the roof, don't think it's because I don't like my house. Just understand I don't like a house that leaks." I said, "I'm--I can love my house. I don't need to leave it--leave it. All I need to do is to fix it." I said, "And that's what I think about my country. I love this country. And when I see it leaking, I want to climb up on the top and patch the 00:30:00roof. That's r--tha--count me in for, for being, uh, willin' to help repair." I said, "But bear you this in mind. If I help build a beautiful house f-f-fo-for the public and you don't let me go in the front door, it would not hurt my conscience at all if I were to carry some sort of a wrecking crew there and tear the thing to pieces. If I help build--if I help bake a real nice cake for the party and you won't let me come to the party, I'll find some way to get in there and put my foot right up in the middle of the pie and just get a kick outta seein' it so messed up that even you wouldn't want to eat it." I 00:31:00said, uh, "I'm going to help--I'm gonna do my share to help repair all the defects of this country. But remember, I want to live in this country, with all the benefits and privileges that the constitution of the United States guarantees to me."

WEATHERS: Mr. Johnson, do you know whether the University of Kentucky, after you had won your case and after you had been admitted to the university, did the university ever adopt a policy of integration? Was there ever any statement of integration, to your knowledge?

JOHNSON: Not that I know of. They just accepted the court's order. The judge said, uh, uh, uh, "Give this man all the rights and privile--if he comes on the campus tomorrow--" He says, "I don't know when I'm going to write this case up. It might be two weeks before I give you a written statement. But if 00:32:00he comes on your campus tomorrow or anyone like him--" see, the class action--any other black person--"if he or anyone like him comes on this campus tomorrow or the next day or from now on, you treat him with as much respect and courtesy as you will any other citizen. Give him all that he's entitled to. Or you can come and sit in my court for contempt, until you do." They didn't need to write--and, so far as I'm concerned, they didn't need to write any policy. The judge wrote it. The judge said, "You do this or you sit in my court for contempt." And that went for the president, that went for the governor, that went for the secre--the, the trustee board. Because we'd sued all of these people. W-we'd put 'em all i-i-i-in, in, in, in , in the suit, and 00:33:00trustee, chairman of the trust--uh, and the trustee board and all the--I mean, the chairman and all the board, the dean, president, provost, chancellor, uh, uh, whate--dogcatcher, whatever they had up there, y--head janitor. We, we got 'em all. Governor? Yes. "Now, any of you, any of you mistreat this man or anybody like him." So they didn't need to pass any law. Th--uh, they just had to, ha-had to straighten 'em--"Fly right!" And to my best information, they did a good job of cleaning up overnight. They were as nice to us as--uh, uh, I've gone to the University of Michigan. I've gone to the University of Wisconsin. And I wasn't treated any nicer, that summer that I went up there in 1949, than I was at the University of Michigan or the University of Wisconsin.

WEATHERS: I have one other question I'd like to ask you, Mr. Johnson. How would you, uh, define equality of educational opportunity for, uh, blacks, in-in higher education? What, to you, is equality of educational opportunity?

JOHNSON: Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, to, uh--in one way, that's a rather difficult question to answer. And in another way, it's as simple as--just simplest thing. Whatever the average person is entitled to, you are entitled--uh, the, uh, the individual is entitled to. Whatever the average is entitled to, the individual is entitled to. That's all equality, to me, means. I don't know how to amplify on that. Uh, maybe you have something in your mind that, uh, needs a 00:35:00little amplification. But I don't see anything. Uh, if you're serving, serving lunch here and, uh, you got a loaf of bread here, uh, you got ten people at the, at the table, each one to get a loaf of bread. One is a black person, just give him a number. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. When number seven comes up, he's the black per--he gets n--the seventh slice. Or if he's number ten, he gets the tenth slice. Now if that tenth slice is the, is the butt end of it, uh, th-tha-that wa--that was as close to equality as you could make. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, just was unfortunate he was number ten. 00:36:00But, uh, that's the way the ball, that's the way the ball bounced. But, uh, he coulda been number one. He coulda been the, uh, the fir--(laughs)--but he--he coulda been number five and gotten the choice, uh, cut of the steak. But according to some system that rules out preference because of race, creed, color, religion, place of origin, who your, who your mother was, who your pappy was, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're fat or thin, whether you're man or woman, whether you're old or young, you are entitled to equal accommodation. That's all. That's all I, uh, I can say.

WEATHERS: All right.

JOHNSON: I do--I don't know how to, how to define that. It, uh, uh, uh--the only, only thing that, uh, that, uh, I think is necessary is 00:37:00to be sure that, as you look through the whole process--you said of higher education. Well, it'd be just the same as in the, in the kindergarten, and just same as in the middle school or the high school or in college. Are the opportunities there for a child to develop his potential? Are the opportunities just as great for an individual--I didn't say greater now. See? If I w--if I were to go in asking for them to give preferential treatment to black students, then I would be a black racist. And they ought to throw me out of court. I don't--I don't go in court asking that you give favors to my friend 00:38:00over here, you know, you know, the one over there. You see the man over the--the black man over there? I want you to pick him out and give him a break. No, no, no, uh. He must earn, he must earn his break. But I shall see that the opportunity is there for him not to be denied the opportunity to develop his talents. Now, many, many kids in our school systems, especially in, uh, in places where they want to discriminate against blacks, they rig the testing system so as to send many white kids into certain tracks and, almost blanket, black kids into, into, into, uh, lower tracks, into blind alleys. And that's wrong. That is not fair. That's not equal education. Now, what can we 00:39:00do about it? I don't know. It's a big problem to solve, uh, solve what we have at hand. Many young blacks, young men in particular, can't find a job, because they didn't finish high school or, if they did finish high school, didn't--they just only--got kicked out, given a high school diploma just to get rid of them, can't read, can't write, can't count, can't figure, can't do anything. If I had a big factory, I wouldn't want a dumb cluck doin' anything in my f--I'd give 'em five dollars a day and tell 'em to go fishin'. "Just don't come around my plant, because y-you'll gum it up. You'll mess it up! I don't care whether black or whi--I don't want any dumb cluck doin' anything for me." Now, many of our kids go through first grade, second grade, promoted on up to fifth grade, 00:40:00tenth grade, and given a high school degree and they can't read or write.--(coughs) Excuse me.--And it's pitiful. I was on--I was--here in Louisville, I was on the Board of Education for four years. And all those four years, I was--I kept s--hammering away. Every time they wanted to do some tutoring and remedial work, for tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-grade students, I'd always say, "Well, go ahead and vote the money out. But I want you to vote as much money out on the f--o-o-on, on preschool and first and second grade, so that, twelve years from now, you won't be coming back to the, to the treasury asking for money to take care of the kids that we botched up for the 00:41:00next ten or twelve years, by not teaching them properly." I said, "Now, you go ahead. These that you want to tutor now in the tenth and eleventh and twelfth grade are those who've been botched up." An-and so wh--

[Pause in recording.]

WEATHERS: All right.

JOHNSON: So I, uh, I'm very much concerned about what to do to prevent a situation from happening twelve years from now--at my age--(laughs)--I don't know where I'll be. My bones may be bleachin' in the sun, in less than twelve years, maybe next twelve weeks, ten days. I don't know. I'm ready to 00:42:00go. Had my life. I'm eighty-one years of age. Fought a good battle. I know I have. I'm ready to quit. But I'm still interested in what to do to prevent the present situation. Now this business of young blacks not being able to get a job because they're not trained, this is gonna go on for the next--easily, for the next five or six years. And all I'm pleading for is to start with, uh, kindergarten and the first six years and see what you can do toward getting some people who can handle computers, who can handle technological jobs. I heard the president talk about how many job--how many millions of jobs have been added to the list of jobs this year--last two years. And he tal--he called it 00:43:00a plus. But he also said they are in the bracket of the better-paying job--better-paying job, running from 30,000 dollars up. Well, if you ca--i-i-if you can't sign your own name to a contract, you're not gonna qualify for a new 30,000 dollars job. Now who's gonna get that job? Those who--whose mothers and father saw to it that their children went to school, got their lessons, and somehow learned how to cope with the technological advancements, that are just jumpin' outta--uh, just comin' into, into being daily, new, new, new devices--a-a-and, uh, I just pity, I just pity a bunch of parents who 00:44:00let their children go out on the street and toss a ball in a basket, basketball in a basket--basket is tacked up there to some telephone pole--and spend two and three and four hours doing that, and then go in class the next day, white teacher says, "Johnny, are you prepared with your arithmetic?" "Uh, no. I ca--I can't work, uh--" "Johnny, have you done your chemistry?" "No. I, I couldn't figure that out." "Henry, have you done your physics?" "Uh, no." Well, the white teacher--uh, maybe she's one of those who would, would like to kick those black boy out to begin with, or slap the little whi--little black girl 00:45:00around and tell her, "Don't come back"--said some other things. But when a mother comes to me and say--"Mr. Johnson, what can I do? This white teacher called my child a little nigger." I said, "What'd you do about it?" Say, "I went up there and told that principal to--I g--I got him told. And I got that teacher told. And I did so-and-so." "What'd you do about your kid? Did you g--did y--di-did you get him to get his lesson? Did he go in with, uh--prepared with his lesson?" I say, "You see, when I was coming up--I'm eighty years of age. Seventy years ago. I can remember people called me a little nigger. That didn't keep me from goin' to school. When I came home and told my parents about it they said, 'Yeah, well, that's, that's bad on their part. But that won't 00:46:00excuse you from gettin' your arithmetic. Now, you get that arithmetic. You get that physics. You get the chemistry. You get your lessons.' And I did. And, uh, they, uh--yeah, white people called me a nigger. But I finished high school, I finished college, uh, got me a master's degree from the University of Michigan. Uh, an--uh, and still I've heard people call me nigger." I said, "Matter of fact, I was on the Board of Education and somebody said, 'Hey, nigger, why don't you get off that Board of Education?' And I just looked at him, uh, uh, uh, uh, and, uh, just say, 'How silly can you be?' And one time I told them, I said, 'You didn't elect me. You can't un-elect me. So go ahead, I don't care what you say. Go ahead. Go ahead. What else you want to call me?'" I said, "I di--I didn't ge--I didn't blow my top. I didn't go b-back home and get a pistol and go up there and get put off the board for carryin' a concealed deadly weapon. Unh-uh. No, no." Call, call my--"I'm not gonna let these white 00:47:00teachers call my child a nigger." "Madam, did they ever call you a nigger? Huh, what did you do about it? You just tucked your tail and went on about it and, and--------(??)--you got prepared, so that you could deliver the goods that were required of you." That's the best answer. And these l--uh, I don't see any, I don't see any, a-any lightening up of a economic situation for black people, for the next, uh, six or seven years. We've got to get rid of all these young people. I say young men, in particular, because I would like for the young men to be able to get good jobs and marry nice girls and raise nice 00:48:00families, feed, clothe, and educate their children, and teach them all these things I'm just now talkin' about. I'd like to see that done. But the bunch that they're turning out now, with a few exceptions, I have no, I have no dream that my hope will be realized, until all this riffraff is thrown into the river and washed over the dam. That's cruel. That's my belief.

WEATHERS: Well, thank you, Mr. Johnson.

[End of interview.]