Interview with Lyman T. Johnson, March 24, 1990

CLAY: This is an interview with Mr. Lyma--Dr. Lyman T. Johnson on the 00:01:0024th of March, 1990, and we're at his apartment in the Blanton House, which is on Muhammad Ali Drive in Louisville. Uh, may I call you Lyman?

JOHNSON: Yeah, sure.

CLAY: Lyman, I'm delighted to talk with you because I had reviewed a tape done by other persons about four or five years ago relating to athletics at Central High School where you served for twenty-five years as a manager, uh--

JOHNSON: --Ce--

CLAY: --as a business manager.

JOHNSON: Central High School in Louisville.

CLAY: Correct. All right. I've enjoyed looking at your resume, and I'm amazed at the great honors you've had, and I was particularly pleased that the University of Kentucky gave you an honorary degree after you had to fight to get them to let you enter. Now, as I understand it, you broke the Day Law, is 00:02:00that correct?

JOHNSON: Yes, uh, to the extent that, uh, I had sued for admission to the graduate school. The technicality that was used was I was--I won what I sued for,--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --which was admission to the graduate school. So the decision was, uh, the graduate and professional school at the University of Kentucky should be open to, to, uh, all people regardless of race. Now, uh, technically that didn't say below, uh, graduate standing.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: However, uh, by stretching the, uh, general interpretation, it included college work too.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: So many of the schools said, uh, "Well if, if the Day Law 00:03:00will not prevent, uh, uh, uh, a person of a different race from going to the University of Kentucky, uh, to the graduate school, uh, then, uh, why quibble over the business." And then, uh, Berea College and, uh, University of uh, uh, let's see, uh--Bellarmine and, uh, Sp-, Spalding just fell in line.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: Let's see, I don't think--not, no Bellarmine because I don't think Bellarmine had quite gotten established as a school at that time. But, uh, but, uh, many schools across the state just voluntarily said, "Well, there's no use to go through the law case if he, if he, Johnson, won his case at the 00:04:00University of Kentucky, uh, to go to the graduate school, uh, any other black student who sues will win his case, so why go through the process? Let's just open up." And so then, they began to open up. The University of Louisville sort of drug their feet for about a year. Uh, we won at UK in '49, and, uh--in spring in '49, and, uh, I remember coming back to the University of Louisville. Uh, I had a committee, uh, working with me through the NAACP, and our committee, uh, appealed to the board of trustees at the University of Louisville not to force us to have to force them. It'd be expensive on our part. We didn't have any money. We'd have to go out and, and panhandle to get money to fight 00:05:00our case, but we would win. We would raise the money, and we would win. And they said, "We don't have to, uh--we are private school, we don't have to, uh, be bound by your decision up there at Lexington." And, uh, I remember telling them, uh, "By public records, we understand you get 15 percent of your money from public funds, and we'll sue for our share of that 15 percent."

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: "And you're not, you're not scot-free yet, and we'll give you five weeks to decide whether you're going to let Negros in here at the University Louisville or will you have to eat salt out of our hands," and like the president of the University of Kentucky, uh, with tears in his eyes agreed because they were wrong. So in three weeks' time, a big article in 00:06:00the daily paper came out saying, "UofL voluntarily opens its doors to blacks," and so we said, We won't argue the case as to what voluntary means," and we just sent some blacks on out there at the next entrance. So UofL came along about, uh, one year later,--

CLAY: --uh-hm.

JOHNSON: --University of Kentucky, '49, University of Louisville, '50 and '51.

CLAY: Um-hm. Uh, I would like to ask you now to tell me what the black athletic league was.

JOHNSON: Uh, state your question again?

CLAY: I would like you to tell me what the black athletic league was.

JOHNSON: League?

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: Black athletic league?

CLAY: Yes sir.

JOHNSON: Yes. Um, in the days before, before my case, everything was 00:07:00rigid segregation, discrimination. Separation of the races was rigid. It was just like that Berlin Wall; it was supposed to be forever.

CLAY: Uh-hm.

JOHNSON: And, uh, many times when I would get, uh, my little group together--I always had a little bunch of cohorts not exactly a committee, but, uh, I can get them together in, in, in short notice--a committee about fifteen, not more than nineteen. I couldn't handle nine--uh, more than nineteen, and, uh, I wasn't comfortable with less than fourteen. I got, I got about fifteen to seventeen uh, fellow, uh, activists, and we would just, uh, uh, just sample 00:08:00around to see which, which nut was easiest to crack and--

CLAY: But now, this black athletic league I'm talking about--

JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. I'm saying that, uh, the segregation started from the school. The school system said, "There shall be black schools and white schools." The state constitution said, "There shall be public schools, but there shall be school--a separate school for whites and separate school for colored." That's almost a quotation--

CLAY: --yes.

JOHNSON: --from the constitution. Now, all the people in the state, all of the establishment, which means the people who ran--the white people who 00:09:00ran the school system, they saw to it that there should be separation of the races. Uh, several times, uh, my own superintendent and board of education chastised me. And I remember one time in front of a, a fairly large audience at the old city board of education monthly meeting, the president said, "Now, Mr. Johnson, do you understand that segregation is, is, is, is, is on a firm foundation in this state? The state constitution calls for it, the state legislature calls for it, every city and county government call for it. And segregation is the accepted policy, legal and non-legal in this 00:10:00state, and you're fighting it. That makes you un-, unethical. You're on the payroll for the system that says there shall be segregation, and you are fighting it. That makes it une-, makes, it makes it, uh--you, you un-, un-, unprofessional." Well, I kept on, kept on, kept on. The point now is there was the Kentucky Education Association, parallel to it, Kentucky Negro Education Association. So there's KEA and KN get the n?

CLAY: Uh-hm.

JOHNSON: Negro. KNEA, all right? Just break it down. Within the educational, uh, establishment, there was the, the Kentucky High School Athletic 00:11:00Association. Now, that's only for whites. Now, where can the blacks play? Well, you get your own little association. So we called ours the league, Kentucky High School Athletic League.

CLAY: Were you one of the founders?

JOHNSON: No, no, no, uh--

CLAY: Well, do you remember who was?

JOHNSON: No, no.

CLAY: Okay.

JOHNSON: I don't remember that.

CLAY: Do you remember about when it was?

JOHNSON: Oh, I--when I started as, uh, manager at Central, it had been in existence for several years then, so, uh, I'd say in the thirties.

CLAY: Um-hm. Uh--

JOHNSON: It started in the thirties.

CLAY: Now, Central was the largest black high school. Was it largely--

JOHNSON: --in the state.

CLAY: In the state. Was there--were there any white high schools that large?

JOHNSON: Oh yeah, oh, sure, sure, sure.

CLAY: There were?

JOHNSON: Now, here, uh--this, this was the, uh, this was the ugly 00:12:00thing from point of economics.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Here I am, the manager of a big high school, and I think I've told you a few minutes ago that, uh, we could, we could equip--we would have fifty-five players equipped for football at the beginning of every season there for several years.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Fifty-five. Now, when you--as, as a business manager now, it is my business to, to, to get the money, uh, scrounge around here and there, get enough money to equip all those boys.

CLAY: How did you raise that money?

JOHNSON: Well, uh, at games and selling hotdogs and peanuts and whatnot, just any way we could.

CLAY: Did you have cake bakes or--?

JOHNSON: Oh yeah, we had it, anything, anything that was legitimate. We, we didn't, we didn't do anything un-, under-, under the cover.

CLAY: The, the black community supported this?

JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Male, white; Manual, white; Shawnee, white, those schools could play each other, and they were all big schools about the same size as Central.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And they could, they could really--whe-, when you have a, a large group--as I say, Central had about fifteen hundred students. When you got about fifteen hundred students, uh, say six to seven hundred of those are going to be boys, and out of seven hundred boys, you ought to be able to get your eleven good players. (Clay laughs) Well if you--if we wanted to play little school like Lynch Negro High School, Lynch, Kentucky, they didn't have but 00:14:00twenty-five boys in, in, in the whole high school, ninth grade through, through, through the, uh, twelve.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: And if they didn't have but nineteen, uh, perhaps not more than sixteen to go out for the team. Now, it just wasn't, it just wasn't, um, uh, humane.

CLAY: So you all had to get some of your competition outside the state?

JOHNSON: It wasn't humane to play--to turn fifty-five boys, uh, lose on Lynch High School that didn't have but one, one team, one full team.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: We had five teams. Why, we could, we could send in the, the, the first team, let them wear the boys down and the next team and the next team. We can send in the last team and beat them. So we couldn't get a crowd to 00:15:00come to see us beat--clobber, clobber, uh, Danville or Bowling Green or Henderson.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: We'd play them, and, and, and sometimes just for, uh, racial, uh, good feelings among ourselves, we'd send in maybe the second or third team to play some of these schools. But who would come to see just a, a, a makeshift game?

CLAY: Sure.

JOHNSON: So I didn't make any money off of, uh, little, little games against uh, Danville and whatnot.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Couldn't make it. So what we had to do was arrange games with high schools suffering the same sort of racial pattern that we did. 00:16:00Memphis had two high schools as big as ours, and when they sent a team up here to play us, we knew we were in for a battle. We, we were not playing, uh, Lynch now.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: This is, this is big-time stuff. So they had fifty-five team--fifty-five, uh, men on their squad, and we had fifty-five on ours, it was really a match. People would come, and I'd charge them at the gate. That's where I made my money. But the big trouble about that was I had--when I brought Memphis, Booker T. Washington High School, when I brought Booker T. here, I had to give them transportation, Greyhound bus.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: I had to give them two nights' lodging, had to give them five meals. Well, I don't care how much you take up at the gate, by the time you pay for all that, you haven't got much more left. So then, you got to go and 00:17:00bring in another big school--go down to Birmingham, Alabama, and bring in Parker High School, go to Austin High School in Knoxville. See, I had, I had on my mind the names and, uh--of the coaches, the principal, and the athletic directors at all of these schools. Out in St. Louis, there were two schools, Vashon and, uh, there's another one out there. Up in Chicago, out on the West Side, out in the all-Negro district, um, a peculiar sort of segregation up there. Build a school right in the middle of a Negro district, then only, only black people would go to that school. It had all white teachers, white coaches, white,--(laughs)--white administration and black boys. There were two--uh, what was it, uh-- DuSable and Wendell Phillips--two high schools we played 00:18:00at. Uh, we played Roosevelt High School at, at Gary, Indiana.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Uh, uh, we, we just--we had to bring in those schools, but remember, every school we brought in, one or two nights, three to five meals, plus transportation. So I used to argue with the people here at the board of education. I said, "When Male plays Manual, all they have to do is call up the city bus and have them to send a bus to take the boys out to the city park," and uh, and almost no transportation problem. No, no, uh, meals,--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --no lodging.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Uh, all the money Male takes up can be spent on uniforms. 00:19:00All the money Manual makes can be spent on uniforms.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: But for my boys, I got to share it with Greyhound. (laughs)

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: So, uh, that was the handicap of the old Negro league. Uh, if you got a big school, you were too big, people wouldn't come to see you play a little school. I remember we used to play Horse Cave--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --basketball.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And, uh, they didn't have more than about fifteen boys in the whole high school down at Horse Cave. Shoot, we had so many boys. And well, uh, uh, the same analogy goes through for baseball, basketball, and football, track, and everything else.

CLAY: You know, I can tell you what Bunny Davis said about that. He said, "They came over here to play. Bate came up here to Central to play one 00:20:00night, and, uh, the first group that came out weighed about a hundred and forty, fifty pounds and that--"

JOHNSON: --uh, uh of what team?

CLAY: From Bate, uh, I mean, I mean from Central.

JOHNSON: Okay.

CLAY: And their team started saying, "Well look, we can handle this group." And then after they had gone through a few drills, here came, uh, some really heavy big boys,--(Johnson laughs)--and he said, "We just didn't have a chance," you know, words to that effect. So you're--

JOHNSON: --yeah, well, I'm, I'm, I'm saying, I'm saying the same thing.

CLAY: I know you are. I know--

JOHNSON: Uh, we, eh--I, I used to get after my coach. I remember one time, uh, a team came down here from, uh--I think it was Lynch, and I went out there on the field, and I said, "Coach, those scrawny, little fellows over there; don't, don't bring out your first team, just, just, just let, let your, let your first and second team, uh--ha-, have the day off, just don't even bring 'em 00:21:00out on the field." "Oh, go on, Lyman, you're not--you're no coach here. You-, you're a businessman. You go on up there and, and, and, and check the gate. You go up there and collect the money."

CLAY: Who were--

JOHNSON: --and I said, I said, "But wait a minute, don't do that." I said, "After all, it's public, public relations. The people who paid to see the game, they don't come to see you send your big team out to run up a score 110--10. They don't want to see that. They won't pay to see that. The public has a right. If they're going to pay, they've got a right to demand what sort of a game you put on."

CLAY: Sure.

JOHNSON: So he thought it over and, uh, that little Lynch team came , 00:22:00and they put on a scrappy--they played a scrappy game. And at the end of the first half, the score was 7--6--

CLAY: --hmm.

JOHNSON: --in favor of Central. And they went through the second half, and somehow, the fate, the, the gods of fate just shined on little Lynch, and somehow they ran a touchdown, an extra point that made them have thirteen, and we didn't get another score. And then, when game was over with all that powerful war machine Central had, they lost 13-6, and King came to me--no, 00:23:0013-7. King came to me after the game, he said, "Lyman, damn you, don't you ever try to tell me how to coach a team again." (Clay laughs) "Don't you ever do that."

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: "So you just tend to your damn business and let--your business is business not coaching. Don't you ever try to tell me how to coach a team." Uh, uh, and he--oh, he was just mad as anything, that he, he had go through the humiliation of having all this powerful war machine run through by those scrawny little people--(laughs)--who hardly had, had anything more than, uh, boxer shorts for, for, for a football uniform.

CLAY: Lyman, can you recall the names of four or five--more if you want--black coaches whom you considered to be good or excellent?

JOHNSON: Uh, in, in, in the league?

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: Yeah, here in Kentucky?

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah. Uh, uh, I, I, I think, uh--let's see, there's a, a man named Baker up there at Lexington.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: Yeah, oh, he's a powerful fella.

CLAY: They call him Dukesy.

JOHNSON: And then there's, uh, Roach up there.

CLAY: S. T.?

JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Baker and Roach were outstanding.

CLAY: What did you, uh--would you want to include Passmore, Norman Passmore?

JOHNSON: --Passmore? Uh, outstanding, ousta--all three of them, yes, indeed. We knew, we knew we had twice as many players to choose from as Dunbar. That was the name of the school.

CLAY: Right.

JOHNSON: But those coaches could get out of their few players more skill in playing basketball or football that whenever we played either one of them, we were in for a-----------(??), and we knew it, and we knew to begin with. And, and, and there was a, uh, a rivalry between Central and, uh, 00:25:00Dunbar High School that was hard to control even outside of the, of the ballgame. The crowds, they--it, it, it, was, it was almost warfare between the two.

CLAY: I believe Scoop Brown, do you remember him?

JOHNSON: Yeah, Scoop Brown was a co-, uh, was a, was an--

CLAY: --okay.

JOHNSON: --official.

CLAY: --an official, oh, yes. I believe he said that--one of the Central teams came to Lexington, and, um, I don't know whether Central lost or what, but he said he was really advised that he'd better just disappear for a little while.

JOHNSON: That's right. Oh he's --it was, it, it was, it was warfare between the two. It, it, it was, uh, it was, it was awful. Central, we, we sometimes wondered whether, whether we ought to send a, a, a team of, uh--I mean a, a bus load of, uh, cheering students up there. We didn't know whether it'd 00:26:00be safe or not because the rivalry was just so keen, and, and, uh, whichever one, whichever one lost was a hard loser. That, that went for either one of us. Uh, let's see, uh, there was a, a, a basketball coach down at, uh, Hopkinsville?

CLAY: Hopkinsville?

JOHNSON: Falls, do you--

CLAY: Falls?

JOHNSON: Did you ever hear of him?

CLAY: No, I have not.

JOHNSON: I don't remember the fellow's name but, oh, he was, he was--uh, up at Ashland, uh, it's--it--they're beginning to come back to me now, uh, his name--man name of West. Oh, he was a good man. Um, uh--

CLAY: Did you know Arthur Hawkins at Dubois in Mount Sterling.

JOHNSON: Yes, but we didn't play Mount Sterling -----------(??)----------.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: If the school was too small, we might play them basketball 00:27:00but not, uh,--never football.

CLAY: Yes. Now, your best teams were in football and basketball. Did you field other athletic teams?

JOHNSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh, we were pretty good in baseball but we, we, uh--in, in that old Negro league, uh, track was quite important.

CLAY: Oh, I'm sure.

JOHNSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. We, we put up a good, uh, showing in track, and, and, and all these schools did do a good job. Maybe some of these small schools have just one player, uh, who, who was just a, a distance runner or a dash man--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --or a high-jump man. Uh, the only one, only real athlete in, in, in the whole school, but he, he could, he, he could outjump anybody else, so, so, uh, yeah, they'd send him to the league, uh, tourn-, tournament.

CLAY: Uh, can you describe the gymnasium at Central High School when you first came down?

JOHNSON: Yes. It was a, it, it, it was, uh, to me a kind of a peanut box thing, yeah, down at Eighth and Chestnut. Not down at the place down at Twelfth and Chestnut where the school now here, but up at Eighth and Chestnut. We could fill up the gym with a few seats. We could fill up the gym and still lose money on a game because in those days, mainly during the Depression or the hangover from the Depression,--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --we couldn't charge some--say twenty-five cents.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And you can't make--you, you just got to have a house full of people to get twenty-five--to get enough twenty-five cents just to, to, to run a show.

CLAY: How much did you have to pay? Well, you said it was very small. Could you--?

JOHNSON: Now, uh, whenever we got three hundred people, we had, uh, the fire marshal telling us, "Close down. You can't, you can't take on any more people." As--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --as I said now, over at Male--see the difference between--white people just can't understand why we gripe so much, but, uh, by god, we, we, we got all the reason in the world to gripe.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Here we were having a basketball game in the biggest gym that we had--the biggest gym that the blacks had in all these schools. Our gym was bigger than, bigger than Bate's and anybody else.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And still, we couldn't seat but three hundred people.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Now, over at Male, you could seat, uh, fifteen hundred 00:30:00people, see?

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Over at Manual, you could seat a thousand or fifteen hundred.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Well, if, if you charge the same price, twenty-five cents--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --but three times as many people, you get three times as much money.

CLAY: Sure.

JOHNSON: But, uh, that was our trouble, that was our trouble, yes. Uh, uh, we had a, a, a peanut box down there. It is a firetrap. It was a hazard. Uh, if--I used to, I used to just, uh, wonder if no serious fire but a lot of smoke came blowing through there, how in hell would we get them out of that place--

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: It just wasn't cut out, it just wasn't cut out for a gym.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: But still, uh, "Oh, that's good enough for the niggers." That was the attitude that the board of education took and, and hell or high water 00:31:00wouldn't change it.

CLAY: Well, what did you do for a football field? Did you play in a park or something?

JOHNSON: We played right out there back of--for--during the thirties and forties, we played right back of, uh, of the old school, which is over here at Eighth and Chestnut. We played on, on the backside there. No grass, cinders--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --all over the place. (Clay laughs) Uh, it was pitiful to see some guy come running down the field like everything, and here comes a guy who tackles him, and both of them just skid on that, on that cinder path.

CLAY: Did you have, uh, lockers, locker rooms in that gym?

JOHNSON: We had something we'd call a locker room.

CLAY: And what about shower facilities?

JOHNSON: We had something that we'd call showers.

CLAY: And, um--

JOHNSON: --yeah, yeah.

CLAY: --who, who took care of the janitorial service? Did some--did you have a janitor?

JOHNSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. We--the janitor was always on hand.

CLAY: Um-hm. Now--

JOHNSON: --and we kept clean.

CLAY: --did you have--I do know, uh, in a lot of cases, coaches have had to push the broom, you know?

JOHNSON: Yeah. Well, we uh, we, we could get the janitors do that. Um, sometimes short of, uh, getting the coaches to do it, uh, sometimes volunteer students.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: We, we'd, uh, get some fellow who, who hung around the team. You know, there's always a bunch of hangers-on, and, uh, they're kind of short of being first-rate cheerleaders or whatnot, but still, they hang around. They hang around the team, and they--they're, they're good, they're good, good, good-natured fellas. So when the place was a little shabby and, uh, and, uh, you couldn't find the janitor who was already working to clean up the 00:33:00rest of the school, uh, when the coach would, would reach over and get a broom and say, "Oh, man, quit playing, qui-, quit laughing. So here, here, take this broom and sweep that floor, man, sweep the floor," we got a lot of free labor that way.

CLAY: (laughs) Uh--

JOHNSON: --and, uh, having good relations with the boys, he knew which ones he could, "Oh here, man, take this broom and sweep the floor, sweep the floor. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, sweep. You don't want Central--you don't want people to come down and see all that dirt on Central floor, sweep it." And, uh, pay him off with a lot of jive.

CLAY: Did you have cheerleaders, and did you have--

JOHNSON: --oh yeah, oh yeah.

CLAY: --a band?

JOHNSON: Oh yeah, yeah, yeas, we had it all that jive.

CLAY: What--did you have male or female cheer-, cheerleaders, or did you have both?

JOHNSON: Uh, um, mostly, uh, female.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: But we'd have maybe one or two of the boys thrown in there to add a little, uh, masculinity to the thing.

CLAY: Did you have ba-, a, a band?

JOHNSON: Yeah, we had a band.

CLAY: And, uh, what was the general effect of athletics on school 00:34:00spirit and morale and feeling of worth at Central?

JOHNSON: Under the master--and I call, I call Willy Lee Kean, William Lee Kean. (siren wailing) I call him a master coach. He was the coach, coach of everything, every-, everything athletic down at Central during the thirties and most of the forties.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: But after about '46 or '47, uh, we, we, we began to, sort of, uh, uh, departmentalize department. And, uh, we'd get an assistant coach in basketball and another assistant in baseball and another assistant. Uh, Kean was still overall--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --uh, general manager, so, uh--and really you can call him 00:35:00the athletic director and call me as a business manager.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Because he, he, he was just, uh--his, his presence, his spirit ran athletics there for about twenty years--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --straight. Then, he came up with ulcers and, and, uh, he, he, he just had to give way and then they started having assistant coaches under Kean. We then began to get separate coaches, a head, head coach of football, a head coach of basketball, and then each one of them would have assistants in, in baseball or basketball. They--we, uh, we'd gotten into a place where we were really in big, big, big-time stuff. And after 1954--you see, my case at the 00:36:00University of Kentucky came in '49, but the United States Supreme Court came down in '54, Brown v. Board of Education. You remember that case?

CLAY: Yeah--no, I don't.

JOHNSON: Uh, Brown v. the Board, the Board of Topeka, Kansas.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: When that landmark case came down, the Supreme Court handed down the decision that there is no place in the educational establishment for separation on the basis of race--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --or color. That was in 1954. Now, anybody who just, who, who, who segregated from that time on was violating the United States Constitution. And all you had to do is, uh, just uh, hold 'em up, and, and any federal judge could, uh, could make the principal, superintendent, or maybe the mayor going in any rest of the bastards, uh--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --uh, sitting in their court for contempt.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: So in--after '54, Kean's health broke down. After '54, the curtain of segregation began to disappear.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And we were admitted into, uh, the arena of, of big-time, big-time athletics.

CLAY: And--

JOHNSON: And that's when we began to play Male, Manual, uh, or anybody else.

CLAY: You, you had said in this earlier tape done by Herb Lewis that after integration--well, early after integration that the white coaches began to look at some of your athletes. They'd come out down to watch the practice and so on. And if they decided that they'd like to have one, they would go to the black mother or father, and they would treat them--like say, "Well, Auntie, 00:38:00uh, wouldn't you like to have your child go to Male or Manual? We have a great program, and you might get an athletic scholarship," and so on. But after, after integration, he said that they now addressed them as mister and missis.

JOHNSON: At the beginning, at the beginning, there was a recruiting process right here in the city on the part of the white coaches to get superb black athletes.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And what I said then, I, I'll, I'll, I would repeat it, but it'd be redundant to repeat it. But I, I, I still said, the superintendent, I will accuse him of cooperating with these white coaches.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: To this extent, he denies it, but I accuse him of, uh, 00:39:00cooperating because he did not do anything to chastise or to, or to uh, limit or to, or to shut them down.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: They would issue an order, "There shall be no recruiting by the high school athletic departments in the junior high schools, no recruit--No recruiting. Any, any ath-, any coach, any athletic coach found recruiting or urging other people to recruit for their high school in the junior high schools, any such person would be fired."

CLAY: But you could never get him to do it.

JOHNSON: Well, no, the, the, the, the, the ugly part was the superintendent told our principal to be sure that our coaches understood that if they got 00:40:00caught going down into the junior high school recruiting, they'd be fired.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: So my principal would call all of us athletic workers in and said, "Now, don't, don't get caught now. Don't, don't--there may be a real good basketball player down at, uh, Parkland Junior High School, over at the Zeek-, Meyzeek, uh, High or Junior High School, but don't get caught now, don't get--because if you do, uh, I'll have to say that I told you not to do it. And if, if you, if you, if you're found guilty of this, you'll, you'll be fired. That's what the superintendent said."

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Now, we had to be very cautious not to recruit black students to come to the black school. But it was aggravating to us when white coaches 00:41:00could go down and do what I've just said.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: They'd go down and tell them, "You, uh, ma-," Uh, a little later on, they'd, they'd, they'd step up and start-started calling them mister and missis. "Ms. Jones or Mrs. Smith, uh, uh, if your son goes to Central where all the rest of the black boys go, Negro boys, African Americans, where they go, if, if he goes there, they have so many real good players that your son will sit on the bench."

CLAY: Sure.

JOHNSON: "He won't play. He'll never play. He'll never play in the big games. Oh, when they have some little game that's a pushover, he might get a chance to play. But if he comes to Male or if he comes to Manual,"--(Clay laughs)--"he'll have a chance to play on the first team. And just think about it, 00:42:00they'll say, 'Look, look, see that Negro boy out there, why he's as good as the white boys.' (Clay laughs) 'Look, look, look, he's playing on the team with the white boys. Heck, that proves he's good, he's good.' And, uh, do you want your boy to sit on a bench, or do you want people yelling, 'Oh, isn't he good? Isn't he good?'"

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Yeah, all that (??). If you were a real good athlete, the temptation was to go where you wouldn't sit on the bench.

CLAY: Sure.

JOHNSON: And so we were at a disad--we couldn't go and we couldn't go down and, and tell our own people, "Don't go play for the white folk. Come on, play, play, play with us." We couldn't even go down and, and, and try to use race pride on them, and they used it against us.

CLAY: Were there--what is your philosophy of athletics? What do you believe?

JOHNSON: I think athletics, uh, uh, uh, serve a mighty fine purpose, mighty fine. Uh, there are a lot of opportunities for it to be overdone. Sometimes, the coach can get so intrigued with the idea of winning that he forgets, he forgets to emphasize the importance of, uh, using athletics as a teaching device to, to bring the players up to a high standard of morality.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Now, when the coach, when the coach is willing to pervert, uh, the real process of education to the, to the end product of how many games can you win, uh, then i-, it's likely to be bad. Uh, I have seen many a student, 00:44:00borderline student just about ready to drop out of high school, and the coach would, would sweet talk him, confidence, control him, cajole him, and--[car passes by]--get him to play if he'll come to school.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Get him to agree to come to school--[knocking on door]--then he starts all over--

[Pause in recording.]

JOHNSON: Here's where--you got it on?

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: You see, when the coach can get the child, get the, the, the young man to agree to stay in school, "Now, you, you can't play on my team if you don't come to school." Now, he, he, he's working with him now. He's gotten him into a place where "I need you as tackle. Man, you're, the best tackle I've ever had," jiving, you know? And, and, and then this boy begins to, uh, look 00:45:00around, and he feels like he's somebody. Here's, the coach--nobody thought anything about this guy until, until the coach decides that he, he makes a good, uh, fullback. "Yeah, man, I need you, I need you. But you got to come to school every day." "I don't want to go to school," "Well, you can't play on my team." "All right, I'll come to school." Now, after you--once you get him to come to school, then put--the next step is to put screws on him, "But you got pass in your English. Now, I'm going to go up and talk with the English teacher, I'm going to go talk with your math teacher, I'm going to talk with each one of your four teachers. And if any one of them says, you need to spend more time on their particular lesson, then I, I'll, I'll pull you off my team, so you have time to study."

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: "Oh no, coach I, I, I'll go study. I'll go study." So there 00:46:00is where using athletics is a good thing. And then sometimes, "When you go on up the line a little farther, we can get, get you a scholarship. Now, stick with us, go get those marks, bring them up. Now, you made Ds. Come on now, you got to make some Cs. Make Cs and Bs, and we get you a scholarship, four years in college." And then you start getting your, getting your mathematics and your chemistry and your physics and all that kind of stuff, and here was a guy who was going to be dropout.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And he was saved by athletics. And, and sometimes, I think that coach was m-, worth more than a real good English teacher, and I was a history teacher. Now, a real good history teacher or anybody else--because we couldn't get--we, we were going to drive the kid away from school. We didn't have any little plum to, uh, to, to, to, to toss his way. All right, go ahead.

CLAY: Yes sir. If you had been the coach, would you have had certain rules of training that you would have expected the team to have?

JOHNSON: Oh, yes, absolutely. I think a coach who doesn't have, doesn't have rigid discipline over his--and control over his team, uh, is no coach at all. If you don't have discipline, if you don't have discipline over your players, you don't have, you don't have a team, and, uh, you cannot, you cannot, cannot teach. Now, that goes not only in, uh, in, in the athletic teaching but in, in the classroom. If you can't control your kids, you can't teach. Now, uh, that, that's just, that's just -----------(??)

CLAY: -----------(??)----------

JOHNSON: Put a pin right there, yes sir.

CLAY: You got to control them. And, uh, would the, would you say now, 00:48:00"You can't drink and play sport, and you certainly can't play for me, uh, you can't smoke." Would you have that kind of a rule--

JOHNSON: --yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll--I'm, I'm just, I just have it, uh, uh, ahead of time, uh, "No, no smoking fellas, no smoking. Catch anybody smoking now, you, you just--you're off a week or, or two weeks. And, uh, just--if I catch you just before a big game, you don't play in that big game. We'll lose the game rather than let you play." And then you stick by it and then they all shape up. Yeah. You, you've got to have rigid discipline. You have to be fair about it. But once you catch a guy violating your rules, you got to shower down on him or else you, you, you, uh, you allow your whole, uh, control to break down.

CLAY: Who were some of the white coaches after integration or before whose--whom you respected or appreciated?

JOHNSON: The, uh, the white coaches at first beginning about 1950 and reaching on up to about 1955 were products of the old regime, and, uh, it was, it was new experience for a white coach. [Pause in recording.] The, the, the 00:50:00white coach had to go through a process of, uh, readjusting his thinking after 1955. And from 1955 on up, there was a, a, a, a, a definite, uh, change in attitude of the white coach toward black students. Uh, being a person of my age and having lived before 1954 and living after 1954, I could see the change as it took place in these coaches. Before 19-, 1955, it was just a common 00:51:00occurrence to be out at one of the, uh, ball games where they were beginning to, I say, to experiment with black players on white teams to hear the coach say, "All right you black son of a bitch, go on and ge-, get in there. Let me see what you're going to do now. Now--it's up to you now. Now, let me see what you're going to do, nigger." Now, you wouldn't hear that after 1955. Yeah, yeah, a, a, a, a, a change in, in thinking had come over--uh, gradual, yes but a change nevertheless. And, uh, after about 1960, it got to a place where, uh, a white coach would, uh--he may think much of that old stuff, but he 00:52:00was too professional and too--had too much self-pride to, uh, be caught or to be heard using such language to his black players. So, uh, I, I saw the change in attitude on the part of white coaches all the way up. If you--and, and, and I know--I put my finger right square on Male High School and Manual High School. I can remember when they used to tell Negro students, "If you are very, very brilliant, we want you out here in our regular academic classes. If you are a real good athlete, we want you in our athletic program." I remember 00:53:00one of the dumbest boys--I won't call his name. I hope I don't describe him so well you'll know him. (Clay laughs) But one of the dumbest boys that ever came down the pike, played for Male High School and played basketball. And, uh, it was really a sight to see the little white cheerleaders go out on the floor, and that boy could just take the ball and just, from almost any angle, toss the ball in the basket--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --and win the game for Male. He was, he was just--he could just walk up to, to, to some little white boy from, uh--on the opposing team, just take the ball away from him, and go down the other field, other end of the thing and, and threw it in the basket. And then to see the little white, uh, cheerleaders go out on--at, at halftime or, uh, some other break or some timeout and see a bunch of these little white girls out there just hugging and kissing this sweaty, sweaty, stinking uh, black boy. (Clay laughs) I say, "Isn't that 00:54:00something?" Why if, if, if a real decent, trimmed, well-trained, well-dressed black boy would've walked by just as the game was over and those white girls go over and hug and kiss him right out there, well the boy would likely be lynched. But no, no, not this one. He's, he's, he's the star of the game, he helped us win, so we forget what color he is. We forget that he, he hasn't--has, he'd been playing here, scuffling like everything and, and, he hasn't had time to take a bath, see? And we forget that. He, he helped Male win. Uh, there were two fellas out at, uh, at, uh, Male--no, Manual, and I'll call these fellows' 00:55:00names because I'm not going to say anything like that. One was named Sherman Lewis, and the other was named McPherson, and they helped, uh, uh, Manual win the state championship football one year. And it was because, uh, that, that McPherson, he--I think he played in backfield, you give him that ball, well, he'd just hug it like this and, and, and, and plow right on through them. The little, little white boys just scatter. And Sherman Lewis was I think maybe, I don't know, a halfback or something, uh, not an end, halfback, and, uh, they had a, had a very good, uh, quarterback. And he could break out and, and get down the field and catch the ball and light out. You couldn't catch him--

CLAY: --um-hm.

JOHNSON: --once he got started, that's Sherman Lewis. And, and they just, they just ran up, uh, a nice record, the, the year they won state championship. But it was those two, those two black boys that, uh, that, that were the mainstay of the, of the season.

CLAY: You know, in the championship tonight--

JOHNSON: --and--pardon me, and they treated those two boys as if--with, with kid gloves. They treated them as if they were, um, Aryans. (laughs) You know what Aryans are?

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: (laughs) But what about, what about the, the fella who's struggling and, and, uh, would be about second or third-string player? "Damn nigger," now I've heard them call at the same time--and I got after Sherman one day. I said, "Sherman didn't you hear the coach call that other boy over there a nigger? I said, "What did you do?" He said, "Hell, they're not talking to me. They know they can't do without me. They're not going to call me nigger. Un-huh, no, they won't call me nigger." I said, "But, but that boy is the same 00:57:00color you are. He's the same--he, he--" He said, "Ah, hell, he didn't call me nigger."

CLAY: Hmm.

JOHNSON: See, see? Now, he admitted it.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: Okay, go ahead.

CLAY: Well, in the state championship finals tonight, uh, Fairdale will start five blacks, and the opposing team I think will have three out of five blacks.

JOHNSON: Do you know--do--who is, who is the opposing team?

CLAY: Um, I believe,--

JOHNSON: --okay, okay--

CLAY: --I believe,--

JOHNSON: --okay.

CLAY: --I believe it's Apollo.

JOHNSON: Okay, go ahead, go ahead.

CLAY: All right.

JOHNSON: But, at least then, you have eight out of the first team.

CLAY: That's the way, I believe it will be.

JOHNSON: Yes.

CLAY: Which suggests that blacks are excelling in sports, and, and, uh, they're getting recognition for that. And I would rather feel, Lyman, 00:58:00that nothing has furthered integration more than athletics.

JOHNSON: I will say real quickly, right on, on, on the heel of that, uh, something that I've said, uh, any number of times. I've said it so many times. There seems to be more adherence to the principles of Christianity in athletics than in the church. And I don't care whether you talk about Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic, or whatnot, Lutheran, or Episcopalian. There is more actual--right now, right now, there is more actual application of the principles of Christianity in, in, in, in, in, in the athletic arena 00:59:00than there is on the--with reference to race, race relations. And the--all they want to know is, son, did you put the ball in the basket? Son, did you knock the ball over the back fence? Son, did you catch the ball and, and, and, and chase across the field? Now, if you did that, we don't give a damn what color you are. We'll give you a million dollars. Boy, I, I've, I've seen a lot of change take place, my friend, a lot of--what about, what about one of the greatest football players of all time, Paul Robeson? Do you ever hear of him?

CLAY: No.

JOHNSON: Paul Robeson was a Phi Beta Kappa. Hell, you don't get any better record than that.

CLAY: That's right.

JOHNSON: Phi Beta Kappa, All American. But when he came down to play West Virginia, all around in the locker room where the, the Rutgers team had to stay, signs had been printed and post-, posted around the wall, "Get the 01:00:00nigger, get the nigger, get the nigger." And when he got out on the field, the coach--not the coach, the, the quarterback was calling signals, and somewhere along the line, Paul heard, on the West Virginia side, somebody say, "And get the nigger." And Paul says he just got mad as hell. I think he's a tackle, and he had these great big hands, fingers about as long as mine, legs, oh. And he looked--rose up off of his, uh, crouching position and looked at the white boy right in front of him, looked him right square in the eye and 01:01:00said--when that guy said, "Get the nigger," Paul looks at him and said, "You get him!" And when the signal was called, Paul went right on around. That boy was frozen--(laughs)--that white boy--uh, oh boy, he was, he was intimidated. "You get him!"

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And, and, and, and Paul said that was the thing that helped him all the way through life, "You get him." What about, what about Jackie Robinson? After the first year, Branch Richey[1] told him, he said, "Now, look, you keep your mouth closed. They're going to call you nigger, they're going to call you everything, everything. They're going to just tell you to go to hell you son of a bitch. Yeah, they're going to--they're going to say everything. You keep your mouth closed because this is the price you've got to pay. You keep your mouth closed, and I'll tell you when you can speak back." After the first year, the boy went around out there and did so many 01:02:00nice plays, and everybody be-, began to say, "We could use this fella. We can, we can win game with this boy." Uh, Jackie, oh, Jackie became number one. Richey[2] go--went around whispering to him saying, "Now, Jackie, you're on your own, you give them hell." And when Jackie would slide into second base, boy, he'd whack the hell out of everybody who tried to stop him. And when he went down to fir-, third base he'd just run all over the guy, knock him winding, and, and, and he said, "Guys, man, it's tough, isn't it?" All right, so sometimes, you have to hold your, hold your temper, hold your fire until you see the white of the eye. (laughs) Is that, is that, is that poetic enough?

CLAY: (laughs) Uh, the end product we hope and I'm sure you hope that there will be a, not only a greater appreciation of their athletic ability but 01:03:00also an understanding and appreciation of the person. Isn't that what you like?

JOHNSON: Yeah. Well, uh, I, I have had a feeling, I've had a sympathy for the underprivileged.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: I don't know whether you are acquainted with the idea that a book has been written about me. Did you know that?

CLAY: No, I didn't know that.

JOHNSON: There's a book, had been written about me. A professor at, uh, Bellarmine College, he wrote a book, and it is called the Odyssey of Lyman Johnson.

CLAY: I'll look it up.

JOHNSON: Yeah, it's, uh, it's , it's printed by the UK Press. And, in the book, uh, I make the comment that, uh, in my trying to keep my own prejudices, uh, reasonably in check and, uh, my philosophy in, uh, acceptable 01:04:00channels, uh I, I have a sympathy for a bunch of people that I think most of society had gone off and left. What sometimes they refer to as the 'poor whites' for short. And I don't, I don't like the term, but sometimes in quotation marks, you get away with calling them, "P.O.," poor whites. Now, I have been criticized by any number of the blacks in the civil rights movement. They said, "Lyman, why are you so concerned in these, these poor whites? Why, they are just as prejudiced against you as, as the upper class and they, they don't--" I said, "But they need somebody to help them. They are down and out, they are 01:05:00underprivileged, they are unhealthy, they're uneducated, they're poverty stricken, they need help just like anybody else, and somebody's got to help them. And if white people won't help them, then I--I'll do all I can to help. Somebody got to help these poor whites." Uh, now, let me stretch that just a minute. I think there is something wrong yet. Something's got to be straightened out in our educational process with reference to black and white. It's not--it doesn't make me believe that we are quite fair. As you mentioned, out of--for the--tonight's game, this top game of the, of the state in 01:06:00basketball, the top game tonight will appear in the first lineup eight blacks and two whites when there is normally speaking about, oh, I'd say, at least seventy percent in the state, white boys.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And you come up with 80 percent black players. I think somewhere along the line, our society as a whole, black and white--I'm not, I'm not trying to divide up and find a--place blame on who--on whom. I'm trying to put blame on society as a whole. I think some of these, some of these 70 percent 01:07:00whites must be overlooked and some of the blacks have been overtrained. I think, I think somewhere along the line--I don't know whether it's nutrition or whether it's pedagogy or whether it's in religious, uh, training, somewhere along the line, we have overdeveloped this little black boy at the expense of the little white boy, and I think it's wrong.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And it takes, it takes--oh, some of my black, some of black, uh, compatriots would give me hell for saying that, and I'll tell them I don't give a damn. I think I'm right. I think that you ought not to--you ought not to give out benefits after you find out what color they are. You ought to fix 01:08:00up a package of goodness and hand them out blindfold--blindfold yourself and hand them out to all the comers. And I think maybe, I, I think maybe some of the little white boys could be a little better players, but somewhere along the line, I think they've been intimidated.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: I think they've been told, "Oh, you can't play as well as that nigger," see? And that's, that's really giving the, the Negro, uh, had an unearned compliment and it's intimidating to the little white boy. And I think that's the reason why we've--why we have this sort of a situation because I, I--and I have--in my athletic work, I have seen so many real nice, uh, white boys. I remember one time, we had a, a game between Central and, um, St. 01:09:00Xavier. You've heard of St. Xavier?

CLAY: Oh, sure.

JOHNSON: Saint Xavier used to have all these real powerful, powerful athletic outfit as well as academic, uh--

CLAY: I suspect that Saint Xavier has won more titles in all of the sports--

JOHNSON: --yeah, yeah, you know--

CLAY: --than any other school

JOHNSON: --they, they, they've been just--they've just been good in anything they do. They, they just set that up as a model. If you co-, if you come to this school, you've gotta be good now, that's all there is to it. You just--if you don't want to be--if you don't want to pay the price to, to, to, to go along with this sort of a program, don't come here. That's the way they are, I know. I, I, I-- you see I worked down in Flaget, and Flaget had the same, same sort of a policy, and I worked down there two years. I told you that, didn't I?

CLAY: Yes, you did. Lyman,--

JOHNSON: --yeah.

CLAY: --what happened to Central High School when the busing started?

JOHNSON: Oh, uh, they went through a terrible, uh, transformation. Uh, they took the black students out, took 80 percent of black students out, and that left 80 percent vacant seats. It had to be filled up by white students who didn't want to go there.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And they was--they were told, "You've got to go, and you got to go there for one or two years. Now, if you go, if you go in junior high school for one year and one in elementary school, then you only have one in high school." And those who didn't have but one to go went down--they had no lawyers to just -----------(??). They had no concern for their welfare and hardly for 01:11:00themselves, and they took it as a punishment and so they just said, "Well, we just go and put in, put in our, our sentence, one-year sentence," and therefore, uh, the spirit of the school disintegrated.

CLAY: What was the effect on athletics at the school?

JOHNSON: The same thing.

CLAY: Same thing?

JOHNSON: Yeah. No, uh, the, the, the first-rate athletes, first-rates, uh, athletes, uh, wiggled around, and this is one thing that is bad on the part of some of the white establishment. They would allow a first-rate athlete to find some excuse not to play at, uh--not to go, not to attend Central and 01:12:00to got back--go back and play and, and, and attend the school in your neighborhood. And, of course, if you attend school in your neighborhood, then you can play on the team in your neighborhood. So all good players, all, 80 percent now of the students are going to be white, and of that 80 percent, uh, a very few will be first-rate athletes because they figure out how they can, uh, get an excuse, get an exemption from going on the busing business.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And, therefore, uh, those who couldn't get an exemption, uh, were not first-rate athletic material.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: And then you can't build, you can't, you can't build a first-rate team with a, a second- or third-rate material.

CLAY: At, at no time in the previous tape or up to this point have we 01:13:00talked about athletics or sports for girls in the old Central High School. I mean, you had these great boys' teams. Did you also have girls--

JOHNSON: No, no.

CLAY: You did not?

JOHNSON: No.

CLAY: Why was that?

JOHNSON: Well, we had, uh--I guess it was just a part of the, a part of the--I won't to say mores--the philosophy. Uh, all that running and skipping and jumping, that's for boys. Let the little girls go and take, uh, singing and dancing and ballet and, and, uh, home economics and cooking and all that kind of stuff. It was, uh, stereotyping the girls with girls' things. You never thought of a girl playing football, basketball, tennis. Oh, they'd go out for--they had gym classes--

CLAY: --yes.

JOHNSON: --doing those things, but that was just for, for physical exercise. It wasn't for competitive sports.

CLAY: Now, in, in--at Banneker and some of the smaller schools, and I'm not sure about Dunbar because I didn't ask them, they would have, um, times when it was a kind of a mayday sort of thing where girls and boys were on teams.

JOHNSON: Yeah. Uh, in, in that little school that I, I, I attended down in Tennessee, that was way ahead of all, all, all this generation. Uh, see, I went to school down there, uh, first, uh, two three years of the twenties so that goes way back, way back. Now, as you said on, on this mayday business, I can remember going out and boys would play volleyball and basketball, boys and girls on the same team and, girls--and, and on the opposing team, and we had a good time.

CLAY: Um-hm. Uh--

JOHNSON: --but we--I don't remember--(buzzing) [Pause in recording.] --that the, uh--that we had any, uh, team for basketball or volleyball for girls.

CLAY: Yes. Uh, you would favor that, wouldn't you?

JOHNSON: Now?

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: Yes. Uh, I still like--I'm, I'm a little bit of the old school.

CLAY: Yes?

JOHNSON: I still want the girls to keep enough femininity--

CLAY: --yes.

JOHNSON: --for me to know the difference between, uh, a girl and a boy. I want, I want a girl to be just a little dainty for me. I don't, I don't want, I don't want them all to become a big ol' husky, 250-pound fullbacks.

CLAY: Yes. Now, we have increasing numbers of black coaches. For 01:16:00instance in the paper this morning, there was an account of the young, uh, Clem--uh, not Clem Haski--yeah, Clem Haskins--

JOHNSON: Yeah, Clem Haskins. Yes.

CLAY: Right. Who is now being very successful at Minnesota.

JOHNSON: Um-hm.

CLAY: And, uh, he is appreciative of that. I think it's made him feel like he can really coach, and he's getting a great charge out of that now. We will undoubtedly have more black coaches as time goes on, wouldn't you think you so?

JOHNSON: Oh, yeah, sure. Um, uh, well, there's, there was one over at, uh,--in Pennsylvania, a coach--I, I forget his name--a very powerful fella. There's that, uh, uh, Thompson fella, down in George--

CLAY: Oh, yes, at George Washington.

JOHNSON: George Washington. (screeching) Uh--

CLAY: So the prospects look, look good?

JOHNSON: Um, uh, well if you look in baseball, look at this fella, 01:17:00uh, Robinson--

CLAY: Oh yes.

JOHNSON: --who brought his team last year or the year last, the, the lowest, lowest, uh, rating of all, uh, all his league to, uh--pretty close to the highest the next year, and he made coach of the year.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: And then, uh, there's another coach of football out there in, uh, what, uh, San Francis-, no, Los Angeles? I think so. And, uh, and, uh, what, what other town is this? What other big, big, big league--big, uh, football thing has this had, has had Negro coaches? Then, uh, Tennessee has, has its first Negro.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: And, uh, it's, it's like this, it's like this: I told--this 01:18:00is the answer I gave to the--to one of the professors at the University of Louisville when we were trying to get them to open their doors. We've talked about, uh, UK and UofL and so forth opening the doors to black students. Um, one of the professors told me, a rather cordial sort of a fellow. He respected me quite a bit. And he said, "But, Lyman, you will have to admit that the black students are just not prepared to do college work right along with these white students." And I quipped right back at him as quick as I could, I just fired at him, I said, "Listen, Professor. Damn it, don't you flunk out any black student until he comes in your class." I said. "You've al-, you've already flunked out--any, any student whoever wants to go to your class, you've already flunked them in that one statement." See my point?

CLAY: Yes, I understand.

JOHNSON: Now, that's, that's what I'm saying about the coaches now. Give the man a chance, and if he doesn't--if he, if he messes up--why, what'd they do up there at, at, at, at your school, UK? What did they do? They can say, "Well, look, you, you bring the whole school into, into disrespect," and they didn't fire him because he's a black coach. They fired him because he brought the Uni-, University of Kentucky into a lot of embarrassment up there. Remember that?

CLAY: That's correct.

JOHNSON: Didn't they? Didn't they?

CLAY: --as far as I can know.

JOHNSON: They didn't, they didn't, they didn't fire the man because he's white. They fired him because he, he somehow didn't, didn't keep control over his, his student, his, his, uh, players.

CLAY: Something happened. I'm not sure about that.

JOHNSON: Well, we, we--I think that's a nicest way we can, we can polish him off.

CLAY: I think --

JOHNSON: He just didn't keep control over his players, and if something go wrong--see, his, his players and his, uh, assistant coaches. You see, 01:20:00if you're going to be the head man, you, you got to be the chief police.

CLAY: That's right. Now, I want to tell you that the Kentucky High School Athletic Association is establishing a museum. And in it, they will want to put all kinds of records including records of black athletes, black sports programs, and so on. In talking with Mr. Roach and Mr. Passmore and so on, a lot of material that was collected on the Black Athletic League and on black competitions have been lost. And if you know of sources that the association could pursue, I'm sure that Tom Mills, the commissioner, would very much appreciate it, and I hope you keep that in mind.

JOHNSON: All right.

CLAY: All right? Uh, is there anything you'd like to add? Now, you remember, this is based on what we thought were weaknesses in a previous tape. We've discussed not everything that could've been discussed but things which we felt were left out in the previous one. Is there something you'd like to add?

JOHNSON: No. I think we have just about covered the essentials of the past regime and, uh, rehashing too much, uh, might not help the, the, the future. It's, it's good, it's good to put on the record the things that were bad with the hope that we will take heart in the progress toward a better way 01:22:00of doing things.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: And not slip back into the old pattern because the old pattern wasn't good for black or white.

CLAY: There is no question that that just can't happen.

JOHNSON: The whites, whites robbed themselves of the discipline that was necessary when they had the old system, had a Sweet Sixteen state tournament from all white schools and the winner go out bragging, "We're the 01:23:00champs." I can remember when one of the things that made, uh, two schools up in the east end of the state challenge us for a basketball game, two white schools.

CLAY: Do you remember who they were?

JOHNSON: Carr Creek and Hindman.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: They had just won the state championship. One of them had just won the state championship, and they were bragging like all of that little school up there, the whole community, all that section just crowing like everything, state champions. And two or three of us teachers promoted in our social studies classes the idea of having our students just, uh, one letter at a time day after day after day after day just heckle Hindman. I don't know whether 01:24:00it's Hindman or Carr Creek, whichever one it was who was the winner. Pardon me. We heckled them by saying, "Don't you feel a little ashamed to be bragging about being state champions? To be state champions, you should play all comers and win over them all, and you haven't play all comers. You haven't played all comers. You only played white boys."

CLAY: You kind of laid it on the line.

JOHNSON: And so when these letters came falling in up there, the coach and the principal wrote me a letter and, and my principal, "We understand the im-, uh, import of all these letters that these students have been writing. If 01:25:00you have a vacancy on your schedule for next season, put us down, and we'll play you either in your town or our town." And we wrote back, "We would like to put you on our schedule. We have a vacancy, would you be interested in a two-year contract? Play in either town the first year, and in the other town the next year?" and they said, "That's fine." And that's when--they were the first white team outside of the two Catholic schools here, Flaget and Saint X. Flaget and Saint X would play us. These other bastards, they, they were afraid that the little white boys, uh--the little, little black and some of the, some of the--you know, uh, some of the color might rub off on the little white boys, so they, they wouldn't play us. But Male-- I mean these two Catholic 01:26:00schools said, "We'll play you. We'll play you." Uh, one of them said, "God will, uh, not look with kindness on us if we refuse to play you because you're not our color, so we'll play you." All right now, uh, Carr Creek I think was the one that said, "Line us up for a two-year contract" and so since they were right up there next, uh, next town to each other, uh, we got them to arrange with the other school, Hindman. Both schools come down here and play Central and then Central will go up there and play them. Both schools--one school will come down and play us one night and the other play us the next night. We'd go up there, and we'd play them one night and then play the other one the next night. Boy, these little colored boys got that ball, and immediately, they, they 01:27:00made monkeys out of these little white boys, and they said -----------(??)--(laughs)--I don't know. I think we won, I think we won all--just about all four of the games.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: We had a powerful team at that time, but we could--we were playing teams all over the country. We were playing where segregation -----------(??) there were big schools, big black schools, and they had crackerjack teams and so we--about that time, just about that time, we won, uh, a a national championship three years in a row.

CLAY: That was in basketball?

JOHNSON: In basketball, we won the National Negro Championship.

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: But I expect each one of these schools would just run 01:28:00roughshod over the, the, the white schools in their areas. Now, that gets back to, to, to this point that I said, "I don't think they're--that the white boys, the white athlete in an all-white school--I mean in an all-white setup gets all the training that he needs." I don't know whether it's--as I said, I don't know whether it's, uh, nutrition. Maybe he doesn't--maybe he gets too, too nice of food to eat.

CLAY: Too much of it maybe?

JOHNSON: Too much of it or, or, or it's too refined.

CLAY: Or he has a car.

JOHNSON: Hmm?

CLAY: Or he has a car.

JOHNSON: Um-hm. Uh, he--he's, uh--I'm remember, uh, we used to play, uh--when we first got started playing Atherton, I would go up to carry my 01:29:00tickets. When, when the game was played at our place, I'd carry tickets up there, uh, for them to sell to their students, uh, you know, advance-sale tickets. And sometimes I'd kind of saunter on down and, and watch the game. Do you know one of the coach--what one of the coaches told me? He said, "Lyman, I tell you, I don't know. I think I'd rather be coaching down at your school because one of my best players has a real nice pretty girl from a real nice rich family. And she drives the car around up on, uh--just outside the practice field, and she stays up there about thirty minutes and then she yells across, 'How much long--ho-, how, how much longer before you, you, you, 01:30:00you're coming?' And, uh, he'll say, 'Well, we--yeah, practice isn't over yet.' 'If you can't come on now, well there's some other boys. You're not the only boy in the world.'" And, and the coach is listening to that conversation. He says, "The boy somehow slips off, and, and figures up some excuse that he's got to, go to, got to, got to go and, uh, like as if his mother wants him to come home to attend to some businesses, and all he's doing is to go up there and keep that date that--the little skirt up there, in that, in that car."

CLAY: Yes.

JOHNSON: See, now, uh, our coach is--he's not bothered with that kind of stuff, see? And, uh, I think that kind of timida-, in-, intimidation of the white coach, allows him to--allow himself to be a little more timid in handling his white boys.

CLAY: I think that must have varied from coach to coach, and it must have--you must have had better disciplinarians among blacks than others, right? I, I, I--

JOHNSON: I'm going to be--I, uh, I--I'll be very cautious in, in, in going far enough to say yes. But I, I, I expect, I expect, yes.

CLAY: All right. Lyman, thank you very much.

JOHNSON: Well, I hope I haven't taken too much of your time--

CLAY: No. I've enjoyed it--

JOHNSON: --but, uh--

CLAY: --this has been, this has been a real pleasure to me.

JOHNSON: --I'm an, --

CLAY: Yeah.

JOHNSON: --I'm an old cuss, and I've been, I've been back before the flood, and, and, uh, I'm, I'm waiting on the next flood and, and, and until that time comes, I'm just floating through, so you know, I, I've been just, um, tossed from pillar to post.

CLAY: Um-hm.

JOHNSON: And it's very exhilarating floating through the air. The only trouble is when I bounce up against the post--(laughs)--the sudden stop isn't so pleasant.

CLAY: Thank you.

[End of interview.]