Interview with Georgia Davis Powers, August 11, 2010

SMITH: My name is Gerald Smith, and today's date is August the 11th of 2010. I'm in Louisville, Kentucky, to interview, uh, Senator Georgia Powers. And, uh, I would like to begin our interview, Senator Powers, with you, uh, discussing your early experiences with discrimination in Kentucky.

POWERS: Yes. Uh, my earliest recognition of discrimination was when I was eight years old. Um, the neighborhood that my father bought a hou-, purchased a house, was in transition from white to black. And there was a little white girl across the street. We became friends. And when ti-, it came time to go to school, we found that we had to go to different schools. She went to a white school, and I went to a colored school, at that time. And, uh, then that's when I first knew that there was a difference between the races. So that had a great effect on me, 1:00and I'm sure it had one on her. That was when I was about eight years old--um-hm--on Grand Avenue in Louisville.

SMITH: Were there any other experiences as a child that sort of stand out in your mind?

POWERS: The only other experience I had was when I was sixteen years old. And, um, I wanted to get an operator's license to drive a car, and I went down to the, uh, County Court Clerk's office, and the clerk looked up at me and asked me for the information, name, address and so forth. Then she said, "Race?" And I said to her, "What does race have to do with driving a car?" Well, she couldn't answer it. And of course I just said, "Well, put down whatever you want to." So th-, that always stayed in my mind. And then, at the same time, in the summer, I was hired at a five and ten cent store on Fourth Street, which was the main street in Louisville at the time. Shopping areas, shopping, uh, stores. And I 2:00was hired. When I was hired in this five and ten cent store, was to be behind a counter selling root beer and hotdogs. It was a standup counter, not fancy. But I was told that I could serve colored people, but they could not stand at the counter and eat. I wanted the job, so I said, "Oh, okay." But, in my mind, I was thinking, I'm not telling anybody that, because they're going to pay the same price that everybody pays. And if they stand there, they just stand there. So I got warned a couple times about, uh, as they said, colored people standing there. So the third time, uh, one of my high school teachers, who was Victor Perry, who taught physics at Central High School, came up; he saw me standing there, and, and I offered him a hotdog and a root beer. And he stood there and drank and ate and talked to me. After he left, the supervisor came over to me 3:00and said, uh, "I'd like to see you upstairs at the end of the day. End of your shift."And I said, "Okay." But then I thought about it. At that time, I had the idea that no one should ever get fired, because if you were fired, it would be on your record forever, and you would never be able to acquire another job. So immediately I went up to the second floor. And, uh, they had this little envelope with my money in it. And I was going up there to quit, and at the same time, they were firing me. So, that, uh, I think, stayed on my mind for years. Because once you're discriminated against, you never forget it. It, uh, you're constantly thinking, what can I do to resolve this? And that was in my mind all the time. What can I do to help to resolve this, uh, uh, discrimination situation in Louisville? So, that was when I was sixteen.

SMITH: Was race discussed in your home? When, when did you learn about race?

POWERS: No, it was not discussed in our home. My parents, um, did not discuss race. My brothers were not allowed to use any derogatory names as far as race was concerned. And, uh, there were people who lived in the neighborhood who would call and ask my mother, was my dad white or colored? And my mother's answer was, "You have to ask him." Of course they'd never ask him. Um-hm. Because we, as children, we thought he was white. We always assumed he was white. And my mother was a brown-skinned woman. And, uh, of course, they were married early up in, uh, uh, rural Kentucky. My father was from Nelson County. My mother was from Washington County, Springfield. My mother was a babysitter at 5:00this farmhouse, and my father worked on the farm. And they were married (??); she was fifteen and he was nineteen. And there was a lot of talk about it in the community. But my father, uh, lived with the Muirs in Bloomfield. Now, you've heard of Muir Bank, here, and Muir Banks all up through rural areas. Well, those are the Muirs who raised my father.

SMITH: Mm.

POWERS: And it is s-, said that one of the Muirs was his dad, his biological father. Uh, so, we just don't know. But, uh, he looked ver-, he looked white. He had ash blond hair and, uh, he was white complexion. So we always assumed he was white. But we, to us, he was just our daddy. It wasn't whether he was white or black.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: He was just good to us and good to my mother, and, uh, worked hard and took care of us.

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

POWERS: When I say "us," I'm talking about, I had eight brothers and no sisters. And, uh, my mother was a homemaker.

SMITH: How about your brothers? How were they treated?

POWERS: My brothers were treated differently because, um, I thought my dad liked the boys much better than he liked me because he taught them how to, uh, work on cars. He taught them how to drive cars when they got old enough. He taught them how to do wallpapering and painting and, and, uh, mechanical-type stuff in the house. But they wanted me to, uh, learn how to clean and wash and iron, and that kind of thing. Domestic stuff. And I didn't want to do that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: It wasn't what I, I wanted to do what the boys were doing.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And, so, I didn't have to do, uh, too much, because my mother always took care of her, her babies as they came along behind me. But, um, I did, one 7:00day a week I would iron. The only thing I had to do, because she liked to wash and did not like to iron. So I made a deal with her. I was dealing with my mother at a young age. I'll iron all the clothes, but I don't have to do anything else. And that's what I did. So I'm telling my brothers when they--(laughs)--get grown, "You haven't paid me for ironing all your clothes yet." (laughs) So they laugh. You know, I say, "Well, you still owe me." Um-hm.

SMITH: Where do you think that came from? I mean, your making deals as a child?

POWERS: As a child, I don't know. But, uh, I always figured out, uh, one thing, and I have to tell you about the, uh, the neighborhood I lived in. The block on Grand Avenue between 32nd and 34th Street was a very interesting block. There were thirteen teachers in that block. It finally became all African Americans except a couple little (??) houses up the corner. And, there were three doctors in that block: a medical doctor, a dentist, and a PhD. Uh, there was a, a man, 8:00Joseph Ray, who had been secretary trea-, treasurer of the first African American bank in Louisville, Standard Bank, and he was very, uh, dignified looking. And, and the amazing thing about him was, that interested me, was that when I was ten years old, he would drive up the street in this big black Buick. And he would tip his hat when he saw me. And that just boosted my ego something terrible. You know, as a ten-year-old, this man, and so, I think that's what gave me the idea that, um, uh, I wanted to act like a lady. Because my mother always told me, "You've got to act like a lady." But on the other hand, I want to think like a man. Because I saw these men going to business, making money, driving big cars, uh. So, I think that had a lot to do with my later years.

SMITH: So you said he, what was he the president, or vice president?

POWERS: He was secretary treasurer of the Standard Bank.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Six-, it was at Sixth and ------------(??), it went under in '29. And then after that he became, um, a real estate, uh, broker. And, uh, when I got older, he was responsible for my getting my real estate license in Kentucky, because he gave me a job working in his office as a real estate broker. Um-hm.

SMITH: Now, um, what did he look like?

POWERS: He was, uh, uh, about six feet two, had a lot of freckles on his face. He was medium brown-skinned. Uh, wore close-cropped hair. Not bald, but almost. And he had been a teacher, and he knew my family. He had been a teacher in Bloomfield, where my father came from. And so, he knew about the family. And, uh--

SMITH: Did he have a family?

POWERS: He had a wife, and he had a son. His son was Joe Ray, Jr., who became the first black African American, uh, uh, race driver in, yes, he was the first with, uh, I have a book up there, uh, uh, all about him. His book, really. And, uh, that's all he was ever interested in was racing cars. He was not interested--his father, the same man, was responsible for what is, is called Westover Subdivision. It's across the street from Chickasaw Park, which was the only black park we could go to at the time. And it was a lot of land. And he bought that land. Then when he tried to develop the land, he was unable to get the financial, uh, backing for the land. So he brought in, ----------(??), let 11:00me see, uh, uh, he was a builder and a contractor, famous man, too. But anyway, he brought him in, he was able to get funding to build those homes on Western Parkway, where African Americans still live, across from Chickasaw Park, in that whole area. It's called Westover Subdivision. So, I saw these men doing all these great things. And, of course, I thought my dad was the greatest, you know. My father was a, an enameller. He enameled bathtubs at American Standard Radiator Sanitary out on Seventh and, uh, Seventh Street. And when he and my mom were, becau-, the reason they came to Louisville, in 1925 there was a tornado. And the tornado came across four states. My father had buil-, after he and my mom got married, he built a little two-room cabin on his mother-in-law's 12:00property. It wasn't a lot of acres or anything, just, uh, some property. And that tornado, uh, what happened, he said, when he heard this noise, he said it sounded like a train. He went to the door and opened it, and the tornado hit. And it just destroyed the sides of the house and the, and the roof, and blew them out. But fortunately, my older brother and I, my mother had readied us for the bed and had us lying on the bed. And, uh, uh, when the tornado hit, it turned the bed upsi-, the mattress, upside down, and held, uh, my brother and, and me under the mattress. Held us there until it was over. I said that was, you know, God was protecting me at an early age.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm. And we were not harmed. So that's the reason they left Springfield and moved to Louisville, because my mother had an older sister here who lived here.

SMITH: Wha-, did you come from a religious family?

POWERS: Yes, very religious.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Uh--

SMITH: What denomination were you-all?

POWERS: Well, uh, started out, my mother's mother, they were Catholics. And, uh, a lot of the people in the area were Catholics. And, uh, then, uh, my mother, when they moved to Louisville, her older sister was a Holiness woman. She was a Holiness street preacher.

SMITH: Your mother's older sister?

POWERS: Her older sister. And on Saturday, she would preach on the corner of Eighth and, uh, Eighth, and, uh, Zane, every Saturday morning with her tambourine and preach the same.

SMITH: What was her name?

POWERS: Mary Kaufman. And, she was married (??). And, uh, my brother and I, my older brother J-, uh, Joseph, we would have walked from Thirty-Second and Grand and come up on Saturdays to see her preach on the corner, and then we'd walk back home.

SMITH: Um-hm. How do you spell her last name?

POWERS: K-a-u-f-m-a-n.

SMITH: Oh, Kaufman. Okay.

POWERS: Kaufman. And, uh, eventually, when her husband died, she moved in with us on Grand. And, uh, she was an amazing woman. She was very, uh, uh, spiritual. As a matter of fact, uh, she would, uh, if I had a headache, I'd go to her and I'd say, "Aunt Mary, my head hurts." I'd point to my head. She'd lay her hands on my head, and she'd say a silent prayer. I don't know what she was saying ----------(??), "Now go play." And I would, my head wasn't hurting any longer. So, all these years I've believed in prayer--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --you know, because of that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: It stuck with me. Um-hm.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: Now, uh, what about your father? Was he--

POWERS: Yes, he became, yes, he joined with her. She, uh, he and my mother joined with her, and they--

SMITH: And she was their pastor.

POWERS: No, she was not their pastor.

SMITH: Okay. She wasn't? Okay.

POWERS: No, no. But he, uh, they joined with her in the Holiness Church there, 15:00it was at Eighth and something, on Eighth Street, between Zane and Oldham or something. So it was just a little shotgun house. You know what that is--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --straight back house. And I never shall forget when I was small--(clears throat)_-they would take us as children to church. Of course we would stay all day, it was on Sunday church, then. And, uh, they would, uh, in the Holiness Church, they would just start out praying and singing. And then, um, they, in the winter they had this big belly stove. And my mother would just have us lying on the benches and call us up and we'd be asleep, sleeping on the benches. And, uh, but they would pray and sing and sing. And my parents were, continued to be Holiness until, their entire life. And, they never, that church, uh, closed when, uh, right after they moved on Grand Avenue. And, um, because 16:00when we first came here, we lived at 811 West Oak Street.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: It was kind of up a viaduct, like. Had a viaduct there. And, uh, uh, like I said, I was seventeen months old when they moved here. At two years old, I was walking around getting into everything, and my father was supposed to be babysitting me. My mother went out. And there was an open fire. And I stuck the broom in the fire, and stuck it to the curtains. Set the house on fire.

SMITH: Mm.

POWERS: So my father turned me across his knees, he talked about it till he died, and spanked me with a comb. And that's the only spanking I ever had in my life. But he talked about that one till I was, till he died. So, uh, I li-, I was raised in that type of environment. There was no drinking, no smoking, no, uh, cussing, none of that kind of stuff. And, uh, I think they did a great job 17:00raising, uh, eight boys. None of them ever went to penitentiary or got in jail or got in trouble. And each one of them lived long enough to retire, the retirement's, except two. The youngest one died at fifteen. He had leukemia. First year in Central. The second one died, uh, a few years later in an automobile accident. He'd just graduated from Bellarmine College. So, that's, uh, my bringing up. And my dad always had a strict rule. Because, you know, I, I would smart off to the boys, 'cause I didn't have no other, uh, ammunition--(laughs)--but a mouth.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And they would get very angry with me. And my father would tell them, he said, "You can say what you want to, to her, but you better not hit her."

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So, they never hit me either, except one, one time I tried to make him dust. But, uh, other than that, uh, it was a good life, and my father was a good 18:00provider. We had everything we need. My father always liked, every two years he'd have a new car. And, uh, he was a great mechanic. 'Cause when he lived with the Muirs in Bloomfield, there were five, Muirs had five daughters living in that big house. And he would drive, and they were older than he was, and he was only twelve, and he would drive that big Chalmers, which is a big touring car. He'd drive those girls down here to Louisville to shop. And he'd drop them o-, drop them off to go shopping. Then he'd tell them where to be, and he'd pick them up and, and take them back to Bloomfield. So that was the way he was raised.

SMITH: Did the death of your brothers affect you in any sort of way?

POWERS: Yes. The first one, the first death did, the one fifteen. Uh, when he was born in 19-, and, uh, -40, I was graduating high school; I was sixteen. And, 19:00uh, after he was born, I would not, uh, take him out, I just loved him so much, but I wouldn't take him rolling down the street or anything, because I didn't want the neighbors to think he was my baby. So I'd just keep him in the house, just hug him and kiss and all. But, anyway, that affected me gre-, it really affected my parents, too, my father. For six months he'd walk in from the job, he only worked six hours a day, five days a week, around the clock, you know. One week it'd be six to twelve, twelve to six. And he would come in, and when he came home from work, my mother always had the table set. He would walk in the living room, straight to the kitchen, sit down in his place. She'd have his dinner ready at whatever time it was. And after he ate dinner, he'd go in the living room and lie on the couch, looking at the ceiling or close his eyes. Didn't want anybody to talk to him or say nothing to him. He was just so despondent and so hurt. And the reason, because, uh, his name was Carl. Carl, 20:00um, I was living in California at the time, that's the reason I know it was '55. And I called home one Sunday and talked to my mother, and I said, "Well, how is everybody?"She said, "Well, Carl's had a headache, and I'm taking him to the doctor tomorrow." So there was a doctor at Eighteenth and Oak Street that she was going to take him. So she took him. So then, after she took him, she said the minute the doctor looked in his mouth, the doctor said he had leukemia. Maybe because his gums were pale. I don't know how he told him that. But anyway, he said he had acute leu-, leukemia. So my dad asked him, well, uh, and this was after the initial, uh, doctor visit, asked him, "Well how long do you think he has to live?"And he told my dad, "Three months." And that's what he did. He lived three months. So when he called me and told me that, now, I was working in 21:00that Cheli Air Force Base in Maywood, California. Had a good job, had just been promoted to supervisor, and, uh, just bought a home. My husband, now, he had a car, I had a car. Both had good jobs. And I thought, well, I was so despondent. I thought, well I'll go home and stay with Carl while he's living. You know. So I told my husband, I said, "Well I, you know, I think I'll just go home and stay, spend some time with Carl while he's still alive." Because he didn't know he was dying. He was a big fellow, and he was six feet one and he was only fifteen, and, um, so he started losing weight. So he was happy, because he was losing weight. But we all knew the story. So I came home, and I stayed a week. And then I called back and I told him I was going to stay another week. They said, "Okay." So I stayed two weeks. Then I thought, well, when he passes, you know, I won't come back home, because it's very expensive. And, um, so, when he 22:00did pass, my brother's calling, "You've got to come home, because Mom needs you." So I came, and I thought, well, if I come home, I'm going to stay. So I'd been in California two years. So I left my husband there with the house and everything, and I said, you know, "Get rid of it anyway you can--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --Give it away, but, uh, whatever you have to do--

SMITH: Wow.

POWERS: --because I'm going home to stay." And then we had a son, nine years old. And we had, had adopted him when he was six, from Lexington, by the way.

SMITH: So what was his name?

POWERS: His name was William Davis.

SMITH: William.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: Is he still living?

POWERS: No. He's deceased. But, uh, yeah, uh, I had friends who lived in Lexington. Nelly Ray, Bill Ray the opera singer. You know him?

SMITH: No, ma'am. Unh-uh

POWERS: You don't know Bill Ray?

SMITH: No, ma'am.

POWERS: I'm sti-, we still friends. He lives in, he had, he went to Europe in, in--

SMITH: I've read about him, yes.

POWERS: Yeah. Well, he's, they're dear friends of mine. But his sister and I were friends. And his mother always took in, uh, foster kids. And, when the mother died, now, my friend, Nelly, worked at Kentucky State. Nelly Taylor, she was Nelly Ray Taylor. And, uh, that's where I met her, and, uh, I didn't go to Kentucky State, I just met her through some way. And, we became good friends, and I'd go there and visit her. She'd come here and visit me. So, uh, when, uh, when, we called him Billy, when his, uh, mother, he was born in '46, she was white, and the daddy was African American. It was all over Lexington that this white woman had this little black baby. And, uh, she kept him until he was six. And the reason she gave up, uh, uh, gave him up for adoption is because she kept 24:00trying to get him in, uh, uh, an integrated school, and there were no integrated schools. She tried all over, all over the country, she said, to get him in a school. And, um, so she couldn't, so she decided to put him up for adoption once Nelly's mo-, when Nelly's mother died.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Because what would happen is, uh, she would bring him into Lexington on a Sunday night. And then Mary Ray, who was now his mother, would send him to school. And then on Friday, she'd come and get him, and he'd stay on the farm. They had a farm. And, uh, the poor kid was, uh, he, he didn't know anything but his name. All he knew was, you say, "What's your name?" "Billy." That's all he knew. They didn't teach him anything. Uh, and, uh, according to Nelly, um, she'd 25:00feed him breakfast in the morning and turn him loose. He'd go out on the farm, play. You know. Talk to the trees. And, uh, he had an ol-. sister, uh, six years older. She was, of course, white. And of course this woman had a white husband, too. So, when Billy got about two years old, his hair started changing and his complexion started getting darker. So she had to tell her husband something. But the doctors told her in St. Joseph Hospital that this was a little colored baby. She didn't believe it. Because, you know, a lot of times colored babies, when they're born, they look white sometimes. But you change. So, he started changing. So two years later, uh, two years later, uh, she had to tell the truth. Um-hm. And it was the farmhand, uh, who was the biological father. So, anyway, when her mother died, I went up there to the funeral. I went 26:00up to be with her during her mother's funeral. At that time, they had, um, uh, bodies in the home. It was kind of one of those straight back house, and it had a little side porch, kind of the middle ways of the house. You'd come, come in that way. And so when I got there, and I went around the side door and came in, I saw Nelly. Now she had never had any children, but she had adopted a child. Then she got pregnant. So she was about seven or eight months when her mother died. And I came into the house and talked to her, of course, and I went on through to the living room to view the body, her mother's body. Well this big distinguished white woman was standing over the casket, just crying and boohooing. This little bald headed boy was standing there by her. I stood there and I looked--(laughs)--and I was amazed, you know, I said, "well, what's going on here?" So, she said, "I'll tell you later." So, anyway, when the lady got 27:00ready to leave, and the little white girl was standing over in the corner, just shy like. And, uh, she had a, I never shall forget, she had a black, one of them big Buicks. Those big Buicks always stuck in my mind. (laughs) And, uh, so she was ready to leave. And the little white girl went out, and she got in the car, in the front seat. Well she and Billy went out, and, and Billy said to the little girl, her name was Patty. He said, "Patty, come on out here and get out of my seat." I said, "You can tell he's got a little colored in him." (laughs) ----------(??) get out of my seat." (Smith laughs) So she crawled out, and he got in. So, anyway, Nelly told me all about it. Well, then, uh, Nelly called me about two weeks later, asking would my husband and I be interested in adopting. I said, "Nelly, I don't want any kids." I said, "You know, I just don't want any kids. That's not the kind of life I want to live." Oh, but he needs a family. 28:00She just ----------(??). So, anyway, I said, "Well." She said, "Would you come up and talk to the mother?" I said, "Yeah." So Nick (??) and I went up there and we talked to the mother. And she was crying, tell me she loved this man and all this other stuff. And that she tried to get him in school. She'd thought about going to New York and getting a job, but she had a bad back. And her husband's the one who had the money. So, anyway, we finally decided that we'd take him. Because, you know, it was kind of out of, simply, because he had nowhere to go.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But the poor kid didn't know anything, and the thing that they did wrong was, she told him he left that, uh, he was going on a vacation for two weeks. So he kept expecting to go home. His whole life, he kept expecting to go home. And he told me many times that he'd sit in classroom, he didn't do well in 29:00school, because his mind was going back to the farm. He loved the farm. Expecting to go back home. So anyway, when he got older, ready fo-, out of high school, he joined the navy. When he came back from the navy, we sat down, uh, a very earnest talk. And I asked him did he want to go find her and see her. He said he did. I said, "Well, I'll try to help you." Well, I had, at, no, at first I told him, "You go visit Nelly Taylor, and she'll let you know where she is and how you can find her." So he went to Lexington, and Nelly wouldn't tell him anything. She told him that they had moved and a whole lot of stuff. So he came back. He never did get to see her.

SMITH: Hmm.

POWERS: So, uh, but I found her later years. And she had told me that, uh, when he got ready to go to college, that she was going to, uh, pay, send five hundred 30:00dollars a month for his education. Well, never received the first five hundred. But, uh, anyway, that's another story.

SMITH: How long has he been deceased?

POWERS: Uh, he, uh, died in 1996, '96. My husband Powers died, um, um, on July the 14th, '96. Billy died August the 14th, '96. One month to the day. Um-hm. I was just getting adju-, adjusted. Well, my husband had been sick two years. He had a stroke. And I stayed here and took care of him. I didn't do anything but take care of him for two years. And then he died, um, and then, uh, my son's two sons, took me, after two weeks of his death, took me to Florida for a weekend 31:00like. And we came back, and two weeks later, their dad was dead. Yeah.

SMITH: Had he been sick?

POWERS: Massive heart attack. No. Massive heart attack. Um-hm. So it was like a double whammy, you know.

SMITH: Did you ever join a church here in Louisville?

POWERS: I've joined several churches. Not just in Louisville. First church I joined, when I was sixteen, was, uh, Presbyterian Church. And the reason for that is, I had a girlfriend who lived, well, actually she, before the Clays bought that house on Grand, my girlfriend and her family lived there. And she would go to, uh, evening services on Sunday. And I would go with her. And I, I joined; I was about sixteen. And then I stayed at that church until I left the city. And, um, the very lady in that church, I swear, she's the one, uh, Miss Smith, Verna Smith, her husband was secretary of the Domestic Life Insurance 32:00Company. So they were co-, considered, well, uh, uh, well, uh, middle class. She's the one who got me involved in politics, that I didn't want to get involved in. And she just insisted that I go on and see this campaign manager. And I won't talk about that, 'cause that's another day. But, uh, she's the one who, uh, was responsible, but--

SMITH: What was her name again?

POWERS: Verna Smith. And her husband was, uh, ----------(??) J.E. Smith. He was in the legislature for one session, in, uh, in, uh, uh, the House. J. E. Smith.

SMITH: Do you belong to a church now?

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: Which one?

POWERS: Uh, um-hm. And I belong to many in between. And, uh, then when I was in California, I joined the Baptist Church because my cousin lived with me, and she was Baptist, so--(laughs)--I went to church with her. And I joined her church. 33:00But I got disappointed there. It wasn't very long, because, uh, something the pastor did.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So, then I came back to Louisville and I joined, let's see, and I went back into the Presbyterian Church. And then, um, what other church did I belong to? Oh, when I got married to Powers, he didn't belong to any church. And he had not belonged to a church since he left Birmingham, Alabama, which had been years. And I said, and we talked about getting married. I said, "Well, not unless you belong to a church. You know, you've got to serve the Lord. You, I can't marry you." Uh, of course, he, uh, but, uh, I told him what we'd do is, I always believed that a husband and a wife should be in the same church. Worship together. So I said, "What we'll do, we'll visit other chur-, visit churches, whatever church you select is the one I'll go to." So he selected Zion. And he 34:00was the kind, and I think the only reason he selected Zion, he was the kind of guy that liked everything big, you know. He was a big guy himself.

SMITH: Hmm.

POWERS: And, uh, he was gregarious, I guess. Liked diamonds and liked custom-made clothes, and, you know, always dressed well.

SMITH: Is that him right there? Over there?

POWERS: No.

SMITH: That picture?

POWERS: No. That's my friend ----------(??) downstairs.

SMITH: Oh.

POWERS: Um-hm. No, uh, I just took his picture out of here ----------(??), I just took it out a couple days ago, but, uh--

SMITH: What, what, what kind of work did he do, uh--

POWERS: He was a salesman. He was an autobile--automobile salesman, and a good one. Plus, he, uh, bought, uh, estate jewelry, and he would revamped, I guess you'd call it, reinstitute the jewelry some kind of way. Like if he bought a 35:00diamond watch, he'd have a new face put on it, new band and stuff. Buy it for two or three hundred dollars, and sell it for fifteen, twenty. You know, oh yeah, he did that. And, uh, he liked furs, he wanted, one Christmas he bought me, uh, he won, he won the first prize with Christmas. And, uh, it was a, a mink stole. A mink jacket. It was too little for me. So we had to take it back to the furriers. And he told me, he said, "Well, you don't have to get one like that. Get one that you like." So I picked the nicest one they had. It cost about a thousand dollars more than the one the company was giving. He bought it. Same Christmas he bought me a full length female skin mink, and a, and a hat to go with it. He just liked it, and diamonds. Yeah, he liked diamonds. Always giving me diamonds. And, which, I was, you know, I was not into that. Because I would 36:00say to a friend, I'd say, "He keeps buying me all this stuff." I said, "I don't want it." She said, "Girl, are you crazy? (Smith laughs) If you don't want it, somebody else will take it." (both laugh) I said, "Oh, maybe I better take it." But it was never my style.

SMITH: So what years were you-all married?

POWERS: We were married, uh, twenty-five years, 1973 in through '96, about twenty-three years, till '96, he died. Um-hm. I'd been married to the first one twenty-five years. He wasn't really the first one. The second one. Davis was the second husband. First one didn't last but a day.

SMITH: Really? What was your first husband's name?

POWERS: I don't know. (both laugh) No, I knew him. He was a classmate of mine. But he had promised to pay my tuition at school. And when the time came, he reneged. So I said, "Unh-uh." I went right straight to the lawyer.

SMITH: Is that right?

POWERS: Um-hm. Yeah. 'Cause, uh, see, what happened is, uh, I had received a 37:00scholarship from AKAs the first two years. And with the third year coming up, I didn't have any money to go to school. So, he liked me and, you know, we went out a little while. I didn't care much for him, though, because he was kind of, uh, outspoken. Nice looking man and all, and had, from a nice family. But there was something about him I didn't like.

SMITH: Was he older than you?

POWERS: No, he loo-, maybe a year or so.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Yeah. We were in school together.

SMITH: What, what school were you going to?

POWERS: Central.

SMITH: Central.

POWERS: Um-hm. And he had a job. So, uh, and I had another girlfriend, lived a few doors (??), and she was getting ready to get married. So she said, "Why don't we have a double wedding?" I said, "Well, I don't know about that." So, uh, anyway, um, he, uh, he asked me to marry him. And I told him only on one condition. That's a terrible thing to get married on. I said, "If, if you pay my 38:00tuition this next year, I'll marry you." (Smith laughs) And I di-, we just, we just had a little wedding in the church chapel, you know, in the, in the pastor--

SMITH: So, you were in high school, right?

POWERS: No. This was after high school.

SMITH: Oh, after high school, okay.

POWERS: No, I, I'd been in college two years then.

SMITH: Oh, you're at Central State.

POWERS: No, no. I was at nu-, Municipal College.

SMITH: Oh, okay.

POWERS: Louisville Municipal College. I'd been there two years, and I thought, how am I going back? I don't have any money. And, uh, so, uh, he said yeah, he'd pay my tuition. Okay. I would have done anything to continue school. I just wanted to get, I wanted an education so bad. So I went on and married him. And then, uh, it wasn't but a couple weeks later it was time to, for the tuition. I said, "You got the money for my tuition?" "No, you don't need to go to school now; you're married." I said, "What?" I said, "Okay." I went straight down on 39:00Fourth Street, got me a lawyer, paid fifteen dollars and, and, and had it annulled. Um-hm. Uh, I just, you know, I was always determined that I wanted to, I didn't want, really, I didn't want a, a big family, 'cause I'd been brought up in a big family. Uh, I saw my mother just working day and night behind kids, cleaning them and cooking and all that stuff. I said, that's not what I want to do.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So, uh, uh, that ended that. So, then, that was in, uh, '42. '42, yeah. Then, I got married again in '40, '43, '43 or '44 to Davis. He was from New York. I liked him. Um-hm. He was, uh, at Fort Knox. He was from New York. I met 40:00him at a party or something. And, uh, so, I guess about a year later, uh, maybe not that long, we got married. I went to, he was in Texas in the

Seventy, Sixty-first Tank Battalion. I saw him down there. I left Buffalo, went down there and married him. Um-hm.

SMITH: And then you divorced him in the, what, mid-sixties?

POWERS: Right after I won, let's see, let's see--

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: --in '67. He helped me to win. And that was, uh, n-, no, that was '60, '62 when I made that decision. Because, uh, I was working for Wilson Wyatt at the Seelbach Hotel for US Senate. And, uh, he had, uh, President John F. Kennedy here to support him for US Senate. So having worked there and being part of his staff, they had a reception for us. Just the staff members, with John F. K.. So 41:00he and I went. And, uh, he was introverted, I guess you would call. Because he would just stand in a corner. He wouldn't introduce himself to anybody, you know, like politicians do. So, he told me on the way home, he says, "Well, I see now I'm never going to be a politician," or something like that. So then when I ran in '67, he worked, helped me to win. And we went to some affair. And he told me, it was a political affair, he told me on the way home, he says, "Well, let me tell you something, now, I'm never going to be a Mr. Senator." I said, "That's just fine." I said, "So, what are you saying?" He said, "I'm just never going to be involved." I said, "Okay." I said, "Well, you know what? You want to go back to New York, to Brooklyn. You don't like Kentucky. I lived in New York with you, and I didn't like New York." I said, "So it seems like the only thing for us to do is, you go back to New York." I said, we had about seven, eight 42:00pieces of property. I said, "We'll split up everything. You go back to New York, and I stay in Kentucky." So, some people told me I shouldn't, uh, get a divorce. My ----------(??) said, well, that didn't have anything to do with me, you know.

SMITH: So this was right after you won?

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: The election?

POWERS: In '68, yeah, '67.

SMITH: Sixty-seven.

POWERS: Yeah, '67. So he went back to New York. And I filed for divorce. [phone rings]

SMITH: What kind of job did he--

POWERS: He worked ----------(??)

[Pause in Recording.]

POWERS: --have anybody.

SMITH: I was asking you, uh, where your second husband worked.

POWERS: Uh, he worked at the post office.

SMITH: Post office.

POWERS: He was a post office employee.

SMITH: You said that you-all attended a reception for John F. Kennedy?

POWERS: Yes, in 1962. Uh, Wilson Wyatt was running for US Senate. Wilson Wyatt had been lieutenant governor of the state. He had also been, uh, mayor of the 43:00city of Louisville. He was a wonderful man. But, he didn't happen to win. But he had, uh, John F. Kennedy to come here to support him in his running. And, uh, he had a reception for the staff. And I was part of the staff. So, uh, we, of course, lined up, you know, John F. Kennedy. Much better looking than he was, I mean, in person, than he was in pictures. Rugged, you know, and, and, uh, I had had my mind all made up what I was going to say. When I got right up to him--(both laugh)--I was so excited. "I, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, good evening, Mr. President." (laughs) I finally got it out or something. And so I did get to meet him. Um-hm. As a matter of fact, I met all three of the Kennedy boys. Um-hm.

SMITH: So you met, uh, Ted and Robert? You met Robert as well?

POWERS: Oh, yeah, I, uh, Ted, Ted came to Louisville to visit Park DuValle when 44:00it was first starting, the healthcare center, and so I was asked to escort him to, to Park DuValle, and I did. I've got a picture in one of my books with him. And then, uh, in '68, when Bobby was running, he was running for president, he came, he came through Louisville. He was going to come through Louisville. And I set up a reception for him at the airport in that, uh, in a hangar, uh, because he was just going to be here a couple hours or so. So, I met him then. And of course it wasn't long before he was killed, and, um, got an invitation to the funeral. And I was able to go to the funeral because they provided a private plane, just a little five-passenger plane, that took me there, and I took a couple of other people, like Reverend A.D. King and Raoul Cunningham and, uh, 45:00two other people. Anyway, uh, stayed at, uh, they had put me up at the, not the Amsterdam, the, uh, that big hotel, famous hotel in New York. Um, ----------(??), anyway, downtown, you know--

SMITH: What do you remember about him, uh--

POWERS: Who?

SMITH: Uh, was he really a nice--

POWERS: Who--

SMITH: person?

POWERS: --Bobby?

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Yeah, I liked him. Um-hm. He was small. He, uh, he was about the size of Dr. King. You know, Dr. King was small.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: A lot of people think he was a big man. He was not. But he was pleasant, and, uh, and grateful that I had set this up for him.

SMITH: Hmm.

POWERS: And, uh se-, se--

SMITH: What about the funeral?

POWERS: Oh, yeah. ----------(??), yeah. They, uh, well, they, what happened is, when I went to the ho-, stayed at the hotel, the next morning was the funeral, so they sent a limousine to pick me up. Took me to some cathedral, I forget the name of it, whatever that cathedral is where they had his funeral. Had me a 46:00special seat, you know, with everybody else. And, uh, then afterwards, took me back to the hotel. Um-hm. It was Bobby Kennedy. Um-hm. So, I have met a lot of people like that, you know, over the years -----------(??) for different ones. As a matter of fact, you know, in '68, I spoke at the Democratic National Convention. And that's the first time, uh, that was the first year I ha-, was in the sen-, let's see, '68, yeah, '68, that all of us, they had the convention in Chicago. And, uh, they met me at the door and asked me would I speak on Humphrey's behalf. And I did. Because they gave me a secretary and a makeup person and all that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I spoke for three minutes.

SMITH: Huh.

POWERS: Um-hm. I have a copy of the, the speech I made. They sent me a, it's on a record and they sent me a booklet with it, and--

SMITH: I wanted to ask you, I kind of want to go back to when you first got into politics.

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: And as a segue into that, I want to talk a little bit about, um, uh, if you would, just sort of describe Louisville in the early 1960s, in terms of race relations. I mean, um, would you say that Louisville had, uh, as some have suggested, uh, practiced a polite form of racism? Was it a city that, you know, the two races sort of got along well together? Um--

POWERS: My, and I'll tell you what I thought. I thought that, um, African Americans in this city, at that time, thought they had it made. They felt, their attitudes was that, you know, we are able to ride the bus without, or to sit on the back of the bus--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --uh, because of, uh, what some leaders before had done. Dr. C.-, C.H. 48:00Par-, ----------(??) Parish and, and the, the pastor at Plymouth Church, Harris, I think his name was. Anyway, at, at that time, the city, uh, leased these trolleys, I guess you'd call it. And right in the front part was a little, like a little, uh, place where African American men had to stand, in rain and in shine. And, um, so, what happened is, um, they started, um, these men started to, uh, they went to the city. And it seemed like they started, seems like to me some of the people started throwing rocks and stuff at the, uh, at the trolley. And, anyway, they went to the mayor and the mayor told the company that they no 49:00longer could, uh, segregate on the buses, on the trolleys. That if they were going to contract with them, they'd have to let everybody ride.

SMITH: And what year are we talking about now?

POWERS: We're talking about, oh, before I was born.

SMITH: Oh, okay. Yes.

POWERS: I mean, early years.

SMITH: Yes. Yes.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: Okay. I'm familiar with it.

POWERS: So, uh, I always thought that, uh, the leaders at that time felt like they had everything they needed, which they didn't, 'cause they still had segregated schools--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --and, uh, they still had, uh, segregated public accommodations--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --and housing. So, uh, but they had an a-, some of them had that egotistical attitude.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: What about the ministers? Were they, who, I mean, when you think of, uh, African American leadership--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --uh, let's say, you know, early 1960s, or even when you were younger--

POWERS: Yeah. Um-hm.

SMITH: --as a teenager growing up, I mean, who were some of the individuals 50:00that sort of--

POWERS: I, I didn't--

SMITH: --stand out?

POWERS: --I didn't know them when I was growing up, but as I got older, I knew them. Um, of course we had some good lawyers, too.

SMITH: Hmm.

POWERS: What's his name? He was with the NAACP, and went all over the state--

SMITH: So, what about Crumlin, or--

POWERS: Crumlin. That's who I was trying to think of.

SMITH: James Crumlin?

POWERS: James Crumlin, yeah.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And he was a, I think he was a preacher, too.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But I don't think he pastored a church.

SMITH: Crumlin and, um--

POWERS: Uh--

SMITH: --some of the names I want to ask, well, we can talk--

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: --about a couple of them now.

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: Harry McAlpin--

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: --and Charles Anderson?

POWERS: Yes. Uh, now you talking about the Anderson who was the legislator?

SMITH: Yes.

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: Did you have a chance to--

POWERS: Yeah, I--

SMITH: --meet him? Okay.

POWERS: --I just met him. Actually, he was the first African American legislator in the House of Representatives, 1936.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Uh, yeah, I got to meet him, and also Harry McAlpin, I knew him and his wife. And, uh, who else did you need?

SMITH: I was just talking about Crumlin.

POWERS: Crumlin, yeah. Um-hm.

SMITH: Now, uh, I'm not sure, if you can't remember, if you were here during 51:00this time or not, but, uh, you might recall that Anderson was killed in a very tragic--

POWERS: Yes--

SMITH: --accident--

POWERS: --accident. Yes.

SMITH: Uh, near Bagdad, Kentucky.

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: Do you remember that?

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: You know, um, you know, of course he was hit by a train, and he was hit in an area that he was very familiar with. Was there an-, ever any thought about, you know, suspicion about what happened surrounding that?

POWERS: I never heard any.

SMITH: Never heard, okay.

POWERS: I never heard any.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Could have been, but I never heard any. But I remember when it happened.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: He, yeah, and, um, um, Alfred Carroll was another lawyer, was very active in this community. Dr. Sweeney the dentist, there, a lot of those professionals were active when I was young.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Um-hm. And preachers, uh, A. D. King (??), o-, of Zion and, uh--

SMITH: Well, that's kind of what I want to go to next is the--

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: --this idea, um, well, two things. One, I want to deal with the religious community--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --in terms of, we were talking very briefly, uh, before the interview began with the Catholic and Jewish population here.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: And, you know, how significant o-, of a role do you think they had in, uh, supporting or advancing civil rights in Louisville?

POWERS: Hmm. I can only speak to sixties, the sixties--

SMITH: Yeah, just the sixties.

POWERS: Sixty-four, uh, when we organized the Allied Organization for Civil Rights. Many of the Catholics and, well, Jews, too, there, not many, but there were some on the advisory committee who were active.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Uh, Pastors, I can't think of his name, on Rudy Lane, you know, it's been so long, the names kind of escape me. I, I, I just can't think, think of their names, but--

SMITH: Who really started the Allied Organization--

POWERS: Frank Stanley, Jr.

SMITH: Did he?

POWERS: Um-hm. See, I met him, uh, in '62, when I was, uh, working for 53:00candidates in the Seelbach Hotel. And I started in politics. And, uh, he asked me when he started organizing this for the public accommodations bill, which was in the House, and also very important practice bill. And, uh, so he said he needed my help to organize the office. We were able to get, um, uh, office, uh, for free at, uh, Third and Main on, on the southwest corner. It was a big, it was a big building, and, so the man who owned it let us have free space there. So he asked me would I, uh, be the office manager for the Allied Organization for Civil Rights. And he and Lukey Ward were friends. I didn't know her until then.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And her, she was the wife of, uh, Jasper Ward, the architect. And, uh--

SMITH: Was Lukey Ward a white woman?

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: She was white woman? Okay.

POWERS: She was white. Um-hm.

SMITH: Now, um, uh, so let's, so looking at early sixties, did Frank Stanley, Jr. come to you and invite you to work with him?

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: He did? Okay.

POWERS: Yes, he did. Because he knew I was working in, in politics at that time. See, I'd been in it two years.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: And so he knew me by me working, uh, having worked in, uh, politics. And, um, so he organized that group, Allied Organization for Civil Rights. What he did is, he went to all the inf-, other organizations, and asked them to, uh, appoint someone on their advisory committee.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: So he had some great names. I just looked at the program the other day from that. And, uh, I just can't think of, I think one Catholic priest, Ola (??) Zinsky (??), he was up there. The names, you know--

SMITH: No, that's fine.

POWERS: --it's been so long, I don't even know their names, but--

SMITH: What happened to that organization? What--

POWERS: Well, after, uh, '66, once we passed the Kentucky Civil Rights Act, you know, we had accomplished the mission for that. That was just more or less a temporary organization--

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: --just for public accommodations.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: And, uh, very important, of course, it was defeated in '64. We came back, and it was passed in the '66 and became law. And that's when I, uh, made a prophetic statement in '66 when I was trying to get support for the public accommodations law in the House.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm. And one of the legislators was standing and I asked him to support it. And he smoke, and he blew smoke in my face. And I told him, I said, "Well," I said, "what I need is my own seat up here." Said, "If I get a seat up here, I'll vote right and do what's right, that which you're not doing."

SMITH: Who was the legislator that--

POWERS: Lloyd Clapp.

SMITH: Where was he from? Do you remember?

POWERS: No, but I was looking at his picture a couple of days ago. Showing it 56:00to somebody in the directory. I've got every directory, you know. I, um-hm. Lloyd Clapp. Um-hm. ----------(??).

SMITH: So, um, let, let's talk about that, then, this, this March on Frankfort.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: To the point of, um, the organizing of it, uh, now, um, do you remember Miss Helen Holmes of Frankfort?

POWERS: In Frankfort, yes.

SMITH: Um-hm. I think she chaired the NAACP up there.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: In Frankfort. So really, who, I mean, who's idea--

POWERS: I didn't personally know her--

SMITH: You don't?

POWERS: --though.

SMITH: Who's idea was it to organize this?

POWERS: Frank Stanley, Jr.

SMITH: Frank Stanley, Jr?

POWERS: Yeah. Yeah, he, he knew people at the state, had been editor for the ----------(??)-- you know--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --and they had, uh, uh, uh, they sold papers in different cities, you know--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --so they had contacts. And he's the one after the, who called and was able to get Dr. King to come and speak at the march in '64.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And Jackie Robinson. Because they had the contacts.

SMITH: What, uh, you know, what, what do you remember about Frank Stanley, in 57:00terms of personality, and--

POWERS: Father or the son?

SMITH: The son.

POWERS: The son, he was a brilliant young man. He was, um, aggressive. He, um, I thought he was smart. Um-hm.

SMITH: Was he married? Did he have a family?

POWERS: Uh, I don't know. Uh, seemed like he did, but I, I don't remember it. His wife, I don't even remember him having a wife. I think he did have a wife sometime or other. But his dad, his dad, his dad was appointed to, um, hmm, a position, I don't remember the name of it. Oh, this was later years, because I was in the Senate then, that's right, I'd got in the Senate. He had been appointed to, to find high school students who wanted to go to college and, uh, 58:00the state would provide their tuition. So I asked him one day, I saw him, and I said, "Well, Frank," I said, "how many students are you able to get to get, you know, to get this, their tuitions paid on that appointment you, you know, you received?" Do you know what he said to me? He said, "Oh, that wasn't, that wasn't for me to do anything. That was just an appointment because I supported it, the Governor[CJ1]." I said, "What? But you're depriving your children. ----------(??) children." He brushed me off. He never did do anything. He just got appointed by the Governor. He did nothing with it.

SMITH: What kind of fellow was he?

POWERS: Arrogant. The, the way I knew him, the way I saw him. Um-hm. Uh, very, thought a lot of himself. Um-hm. And, you see, at that time, they looked at me 59:00like I was, you know, just a, a nobody, really, you know, because my parents weren't professional people. They didn't know them. As a matter of fact, when I announced I was going to run, "Who is she? Who are her parents? What do they do?" I had African Americans who never supported me in twenty-one years. Elitists in this city.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: So you're saying that there was definitely an intraracial class division among African Americans.

POWERS: Yes. Yes. Right in the city of Louisville. Um-hm. Um-hm. Um-hm.

SMITH: So when you think about that old class, who would you put in there? Would you put, let's say, Frank Stanley, uh--

POWERS: Woodford Porter[CJ2], uh--

SMITH: I guess like the old guard, is what I'm saying.

POWERS: It was the old guard. They were the leaders, you know ----------(??) somebody comes up and announces she's going to run, didn't ask us if she could run, and didn't, we don't even know her, you know. What are her qualifications? Who are her parents? Well, see, but they didn't know me. They didn't know that I'm the kind of person, I don't have to ask you what I'm going to do.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I just do it.

SMITH: Was that a big deal here in Lexington, when you think about intraracial--

POWERS: In, in Louisville?

SMITH: I mean, excuse me, in Louisville--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --intraracial divisions, um, along class lines, was that a, you know, one, we deal with class. What about skin color? Was that an issue?

POWERS: Yeah, it was an issue, too. Yeah. Because I always believed that the reason Miss Smith wanted me to go to that headquarters to work, because they didn't have any African Americans in there. But at that time, they didn't want any obvious African Americans. They wanted somebody people say, well, is she or isn't she? See, I knew that when I got there. That's what it was all about. She 61:00wanted to have an African American in Wilson Wyatt's headquarters.

SMITH: So this was Verna Smith?

POWERS: Verna Smith[CJ3].

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

POWERS: Yeah. Now her son was Hughes McGill, he, uh, no, her son-in-law was Hughes McGill. And he won the House seat the same time I won the Senate seat. And Mae Street Kidd won the House seat. Same time. But he died, you know. And his wife ran for his seat, and won. But she never liked me because her mother liked me so much. She was jealous of my relationship with her mother. Um-hm.

SMITH: Hughes McGill's wife was--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: ----------(??)--

POWERS: Yeah, Charlotte McGill[CJ4]. She was in the House. Yeah. Her mother, see, she, her mother and I were church members together. She didn't come there. And, uh, her mother liked me. And so she's the one that encouraged me to go, to 62:00get in politics, see? And so she knew that, but she was never real friendly to me. Of course Hughes was just there because he was, he was there to have a good time. And to fit in with the white boys. That's what Hughes McGill[CJ5] was there for.

SMITH: Now Hughes McGill was an African American, wasn't he?

POWERS: Yeah, he was African American.

SMITH: But, he just--

POWERS: But he won the same time--

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: --I did, in the House. Yeah, so, um--

SMITH: So this lady, Verna Smith--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --uh, she's the one that recruited you to work in Wilson Wyatt's--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --office, right?

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: So how did you-all meet? I mean, uh--

POWERS: We were in the same church.

SMITH: Went to same, what was the name of the church?

POWERS: Um, Ferguson Memorial Presbyterian Church.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: And I became a, what, an ordained, um, deacon in the church in 1960. Um-hm. Yeah.

SMITH: So are you still a member there?

POWERS: No. That church no longer exists. Um-hm.

SMITH: Are you still Presbyterian?

POWERS: No. I haven't been Presbyterian since, uh, uh, the last Presbyterian church I belonged to was, um, uh, what was the name of that church? Anyway, they no longer exist. They merged with somebody else. And I was no longer a Presbyterian after that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But, and then I told you, in between, I went to church with my husband, Zion.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And then, after he died, we had his funeral there, and I never went back. Because that wasn't my church.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I was just, I was really going because I wanted to be with him.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And then, uh, I was out of church for a little while. And I visited churches, you know, but I didn't belong. Uh, I went to a Pentecostal church for a while. Family Worship Center. And, uh, and the reason I went there, 'cause the pastor had been a, a, a, an entertainer, Welton Lane, for years. And then he 64:00became a pastor. And, uh, he played in a hotel out on Dixie Highway.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And I used to go out there to hear him play. He was not a pastor then. And, uh, he was a good man, but he was not pastor of the church. And so, then, when he started a church, had a friend who went to visit him. Oh, he played the organ and sang, you know? And I was enjoying the music. (laughs) I went to enjoy the music. Uh, so--

SMITH: You want to take a break? You want to take a break?

POWERS: No, I'm okay.

SMITH: Okay. Uh--

POWERS: And, uh, so I went out there for a long while. And then I stopped going there for a reason. And, uh, I was out of church for a while. So, anyway, let's see, in 1999, I was asked to present, um, a certificate or a plaque or something 65:00to a couple who were here, and they were high in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Now I've always been connected with Seventh Day Adventists, like, um, um, the Mawkins (??). I don't know if you've ever heard of them or not.

SMITH: Unh-uh.

POWERS: They were a great family here. Milbert (??) Mawkin (??) and his family. They were our neighbors at one time. And, uh, so anyway, I went to this reception to do a presentation. So the pastor of New Life Seventh Day Adventist Church, where I belong now, was there, he and his wife. And so, he just come and asked me one, while I was there, he says, "Well, I'd like for you to come and visit my church." And I said, "Well, where is it?" He said,"New Life Seventh Day Adventist Church." He said, "You know, we worship on Saturday morning, on the Sabbath." And I said, "Oh, okay, yeah, I'll come and visit you." You know, I 66:00visited everybody. So I went for, let's see, how long did I go, about thirteen months, every Saturday. And I finally joined. And so I've been there ever since. That's where I am now. Yeah.

SMITH: Well, I want to--

POWERS: It's a small church, a, you know, a small congregation. That's what I like. Uh, now, there's a larger Seventh Day Adventist Church, African American, it's called Magazine Street. Uh, it's over, oh, they just remodeled. And they have the school called E., Emma L. Minnis Academy. But anyway, uh, some of those people thought because of my position, that I should have joined that church. Because the elitist Seventh Day Adventists over there. I said, "But, that's not what I go to church for." I, I told them, I said, "That's not why I go to church." I said, "You know what? I just want to go to church and worship the 67:00Lord, that's all. And lift him up and praise him." I said, "I'm not interested," I said, "church is not my social life. You know, they had a lot of things going on." But, I said, "There's two things that I will be faithful to. I'll be faithful to go to prayer service tomorrow night. We've got a power prayer service tonight, six o'clock for two hours. And, uh, and I'll be there on Sabbath morning." Sometimes I go to Sabbath school, and sometimes I sit here and study the lesson because I get more out of it because I'm alone and I can concentrate and read the scripture. And then I can get ready and go on to divine service. And a lot of times they have dinners and stuff, you know, every now and then I attend.

SMITH: So is this an African American church?

POWERS: Yeah. And every now and then I attend that, because I don't want them to think that I think I'm too big to come and, and eat with them, you know.

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

POWERS: So every now and then I do that, but--

SMITH: About how many members do you have?

POWERS: Uh, I have no idea. On, on Saturday morning maybe, less than a hundred people.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Um-hm. It's small, you know. But they, I'll tell you one thing about those ----------(??), most of them are educated. But they're not, they're not the kind of educated that these are over here, you know. They're educated, but they're sensible, whether they realize what an education is for.

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm. We've got young people who are active who, uh, have their degrees, but you never know it.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Because they just work. They're husbands and wives, and, and, uh, they're just good with the children. They're, they're good.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: I want to go back now to when you, uh, when Verna--

POWERS: Smith.

SMITH: --Smith--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --recruited you--

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: --to work for Wilson Wyatt.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: Can you think back to those early days when you first came into the office, and you, of course you would obviously be the first--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --African American working there and all.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: What was that experience like for you?

POWERS: Well in the first place, I didn't need a job. I was on a leave of absence from the US Census Bureau in Indiana. And the reason I was on a leave of 69:00absence, because I was supervising the IBM section. Had seventy-five women working all the machines, from keypunch machines to all the big machines. And, uh, we had deadlines to make, to meet. And, uh, I was working ten hours a day, and I was working seven days a week. And I was tired. So I thought, well, I'll just take a leave of absence for a while and get rested up. So I was on a leave when this happened, when Miss Smith, three consecutive Sundays, asked me to go to see the manager of Wilson Wyatt's campaign. So finally, on the third Sunday, I thought, the only way I'm going to get rid of Miss Smith is to go and see this man. That was the biggest blessing I ever had in my life. I went to see him. And then when I got there, being a woman, the first thing he asked me was, "Can you type?" Now I'm over a whole division of IBM machines. I said, "No." "Can you 70:00take shorthand?" "No." Then I started thinking, what am I doing here? So I said, well, I'll play along with this. He said, "Well, that's okay. We'll hire you." I said, "I tell you what," I said, "I'll work one week. If I like it, I'll be back. If I don't like it, I won't be back, and you don't have to pay me." He said, "Oh, we'll pay you." I said, "Okay." So I didn't know what I was going to do. So, they showed me all around. The second day I went in, they showed me around. The second day, all these white men came in with their cigars and their hats on. They went into this room. Uh, uh, U.S. senators and the Governor, and all these big shot men, white men. I thought, oh my goodness. I said, they are in that room making decisions for all of us out here. I said, that's what I need is some power. I need to be empowered. I said, I'm out here marching in the streets and leading, uh, uh, marches out getting rocks and stuff thrown at me. I 71:00need to be where I can make policy. That was my decision. The third day I walked in there, they met me at the door and they said, uh, uh, "Fred," whatever his name was, he was chairman of volunteers in the state for Wyatt. They said, "Would you," he was in an automobile ac-, accident in Western Kentucky last night, they said, they said, "He won't be able to come back to the campaign. Will you take that position?" "Yes, I'll take it." Now what it entailed, it, uh, these affluent white women from the East End, will come in, you know, dressed, and, and maybe they help me, and they stay two or three hours, and then they go to lunch, you know, that kind of stuff. Well, I would have something for them to do. Because we didn't have computers then.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So we had the old mimeographic machine you had to work it with your arms and paper came out, the print came out purple.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And, uh, I was sending material all over the state, and letters. And of 72:00course the letters had to be done. And, uh, I signed all the letters Wilson W. Wyatt. I did. I signed his name. Because they showed me his signature, and I signed it just like he did. And, uh, then they had to be stuffed, and we had to seal the letters by hand. And then we had to lick the stamps and put them on.

SMITH: Mm.

POWERS: So that was my job, to keep these women busy doing this volunteer work.

SMITH: And he was running for what office?

POWERS: US Senate.

SMITH: US Senate.

POWERS: Um-hm. And, uh, so I worked there t-, through the primary, and he won. A.B. Chandler was running against him. He was over, his office was over across the street. Now, Lukey Ward, this white woman I told you about later--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --that's when I learned that, and I wasn't sure I could trust her too much, because she was working both sides of the street. Street.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: She'd come over there to where I was, and get, and she'd gather up material, and I'd see her gathering up all this stuff I was sending out, and she'd take it out with her and she'd take it over across the street to the Chandler office. Found that out. Well, anyway, uh, went on to the general election, and of course he lost. And, um, before the election, Ned Breathitt had, had announced that he was going to run for governor. So his people came to me and asked me would I stay on in the same position with his headquarters. I told them, yes, I would. You know, I've got to have a job. And I was getting to like it, too. (laughs) Except one thing. Uh, I found that there was a Jim Porter room down in the first floor in the hotel, and the other staff members could go down after lunch and sign the check. When I found that out, I said, okay. And see, I never let anybody else know where I am or what I'm doing. Because if I 74:00let you know, they don't need me, they'll get you.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So, anyway, one day I was invited to lunch, and I stayed two hours. Those women came in from the East End, they didn't know what to give them to do. They didn't have nothing to, oh, they were so worried, you know. When I came, "Oh, we were so worried. Miss so-and-so has been here--"I said, "Why didn't you give them something to do?" "Well, we didn't know what you were doing." I said, "You didn't?"Anyway, she said to me, uh, "Well, would you mind having lunch down in Jim Porter room?" I said, "I don't mind having lunch down there." She says, "Then, uh, you can just sign the tab." I said, "Well, that's fine, but I don't like to eat by myself." I said, "You know the little old woman that comes in there to help me," I said, uh, she was a little old white woman. She was old and she had tattered clothes, but they had been expensive clothes. And she would 75:00come in. And I said, "You know, sometimes I'd like to take her to lunch, or somebody else to lunch." "That's okay. Just be where we can get in touch with you, though." So that worked out okay. Always make it a deal. Make it a deal. But I learned something a long time ago. I read a book called, uh, Something of Value. It was about the Mandingo tribe in Africa. And it said you never give up something of value unless you get something of value in return. And that has been my theory all the way through. When the Governor asked me to vote for a half percent increase tax on the roads, I said, "Well, wait a minute." I said, "You know, I'm not for raising taxes." "This is very important for the roads in rural areas." And I said, "Well, I have to think about that." But she didn't know what was coming. This is Martha Layne Collins.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So I said, "I'll think about it, let you know something." So the next 76:00day she calls me and asks me to come to come to her office."Have you thought about it?" "Yes, I have." "Well, what do you think?" I said, "Well, you know what?," I said, "I've got a friend who needs a job." I said, "You ever heard of Raoul Cunningham?" "I've heard of him." Well see, what happened, I got there in '68 and served, and in '70, Dee Huddleston, who was in the Senate when I was there, he ran for the US Senate. When Dee Huddleston came to me and asked me would I support him for the Senate, I said, "Only on one condition." He said, "What's that?" "That when you, if you win, you take Raoul Cunningham to Washington, DC to be your legislative aide. Not a flunky, but a legislative aide." He said, "Yeah, I'll do it." And he did. Now, he went to DC, Raoul went with him, he worked for him until he got defeated, twelve years. So Raoul stayed in DC for a little while. Then he came back home and he needed a job. This is 77:00when Martha Layne spoke. Um-hm.

[Pause in recording.]

SMITH: Okay. I just kind of want to return now to the discussion of, um, you know, just prior to you working with the Wilson Wyatt campaign, that you were involved in some of the, uh, demonstrations here in--

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: --in Louisville.

POWERS: Uh, now, I was speaking of the ones in '65.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Now we had been involved in '63 with the city, uh, in ordinances. Uh, but the ones I led was in '65. A.D. King had come here to pastor Zion.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And we became friends. And, uh, there was a little house next door to his church. And in, the back of it was connected. You could come around and come into the church. They had done that, and he let us have the front room as an office. And we organized the Kentucky Christian Leadership Conference, which was an arm of Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And so, Lukey and I worked in that office together in, that's in '65. And, um, yeah, that was--

SMITH: So had you, you met, had you met Raoul Cunningham before then?

POWERS: No, no. I didn't meet him till '67.

SMITH: How did you select him to be your campaign chair?

POWERS: Well, uh, when I met him, and, uh, he just got, he, I found out he had been active in DC in the Young Dems. He was politically astute. And, uh, he was energetic. And so, I thought, well, this is a good man to--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --to have to run the campaign. He knows more about politics than I do.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: He's been working in politics in DC.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And then Billy Gatewood, you know him? William Gatewood, who is now, uh, director of Presbyterian Community Center up here? He came in. He came on board, too. And he was like a co-chairman. And, and we worked together. And, uh, 79:00we organized, uh, first thing we did is have a massive voter registration drive.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And Raoul, uh, when he came back home, he had a choir in his church, about seventy-five young people, youth, uh, young people. And he got permission from the parents. And everyday when they got out of school, they came to the office. And we'd have hamburger and French fries and a drink for them. We sent them out in pairs of twos, door-to-door, we'd map out the blocks for them to go to, doing voter registration, see. And, so, uh, that worked well. And then we'd always have a little something to pass out, you know--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --for, for the candidates. So, uh, uh--

SMITH: You know, this seems like historically, that African Americans in Louisville have been very politically astute, very much involved--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --in politics, and--

POWERS: Yes. They have.

SMITH: --you know, really knowing, uh, you know, not putting all their eggs in one basket in--

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: --terms of Republicans and Democrats.

POWERS: Um-hm. Um-hm.

SMITH: You know, it actually, you know, seems as though a significant, uh, number of African Americans in Louisville stayed with the Republican Party, you know, through the 1950s. And even into the early sixties. And so, I guess I--

POWERS: I didn't know very many Republicans in the sixties.

SMITH: You know, this, this, some (??)--

POWERS: There were some. I know there were.

SMITH: Well, and my question is, you know, you know, what made Louisville different from the rest of the state when it came to politics, what, I mean, in terms of African Americans--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --uh, activity. I mean, you don't see this kind of a-, political, uh, you know, activity in, let's say, Lexington, or, even other parts of the state.

POWERS: I, I know. Because, you see, I'm very familiar with Bloomfield, Bardstown, those areas. And the African Americans there are so satisfied. They're just pleased with whatever's going on. And they smiling and they happy. But, they're not actually active politically. Because some of my relatives, I try to get to be active, to vote, even. It's difficult. But, uh, people in 81:00Louisville, I guess, because of the larger community--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --and so many things happening, and then so many, uh, leaders and so many who want to be leaders--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --they came out, you know, and they sort of get together, and whatever the issue is, try to resolve it. I think that's what happened, and that's gone on for years.

SMITH: Yeah--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --I've just kind of wondered why, you know, why the level of political activity among African Americans in Louisville is so much--

POWERS: And don't--

SMITH: --greater than--

POWERS: Yeah, and, and--

SMITH: --the rest--

POWERS: And don't forget, and, and another thing, too, now, the Democratic Party in Louisville was run by a woman named Lennie McLaughlin. She was a mean old woman. But, when there were Democratic mayors in this city, see, she would help to get them elected, because she controlled all the sanitation workers, the garbage tippers, all these people. And whatever Lennie said, they did. And she 82:00would tell them that it's not important to vote in the primary, see. But you vote, you've got to vote in the big election.

SMITH: What was her name again?

POWERS: Lennie McLaughlin.

SMITH: How do you spell that?

POWERS: M-c-L-a-u-g-h-l-i-n. Her first name was Lennie. L-e-n-n-i-e. I couldn't work with her 'cause she was too mean. And I heard her one time say the "N" word on TV. Because I would go down to the headquarters, but I never did stay down there much. Unh-uh.

SMITH: So was she a wealthy woman?

POWERS: No.

SMITH: Did she have a business?

POWERS: No, she, she, she, she, uh, in the early years I understand that her, her male friend was wealthy and powerful, and so, that's how she became, she was the executive secretary of the Democratic Party in Louisville. She controlled a-, all the city workers. You wanted a job, you had to do what she said to do. As a matter of fact, in '64, I ran for chairman of the district, and, uh, uh, 83:00chairman of the district, which meant that you, if you won the chairmanship, you became a member of the Democratic Executive Committee. That's the committee that makes all the policy for the Democrats in the city. So she wasn't too worried about me because she hadn't heard anything about me, didn't know anything about me either. But she didn't know that I had a plan. And there was a man who owned a, a company, his company wa-, were bridge builders. Nice man. Robert Whitehouse. And I met him. He didn't know nothing about politics, but he told me he'd help me. So, he printed up all my material. He helped me when I, I, I got 84:00the list, you know, went through the list. Anyway, when we go to, got to the election of, of, of the chair, uh, she sent a big time lawyer down there to, to spite me out, you know. So we started, he started, uh, he opened up the floor to open it up. And I had Robert's Rules of Order in my hand. I didn't know nothing about it, but I had it. And when, uh, it came to a vote, I, I, I, I made a motion to have a s-, secret ballot. "No, we can't have that." I just opened the book. "It says right here that this is in order, that we can have a secret ballot." See, I just turned pages ----------(??)----------. So, we had a secret ballot, 'cause they wouldn't, those people would not have voted against her candidate for me unless there was a secret ballot. They'd be scared to. They'd 85:00lose their job.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I won by two votes. Yeah. I won. I, I was the first, and J.E. Smith, he was, he ran for the district he was in, and he won. We were the first two African Americans to sit on the, uh, Democratic Executive Committee here in, in, in Louisville and Jefferson County. Now, I stayed on it two years. Oh, I'd come in with all these bright ideas about how we could get more black folks registered and how we could do this, that, and the other. They were so, they were just so gentlemanly. And they, they'd listen kindly. And that was, would be the end of that. I sat there two years out of a four-year term. I said, no, this is not for me. So I quit. I resigned. I, 'cause I, I felt like I was wasting my time.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So, uh, that was '64, in '66 I quit. And that's when I went to Frankfort, uh, working on, well in '64 I was working on March on Frankfort, too. 86:00So I was really busy.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Yeah. So, uh, but, uh, there are a lot of people in this city who are political animals, really. You know, they're just politically-minded. Um-hm. Uh, the people we can't get out to vote are the people who, uh, who need to vote the, the worst kind of way. And that's the people who live in the projects. We can't get them out to vote because many of them are on, uh, Section 8 or Section something--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --and they're afraid it's going to affect their income or whatever--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --if they, uh, go vote.

SMITH: Mm.

POWERS: It's very difficult to get them out. And, uh, but, uh, we try. Um-hm.

SMITH: Let me, um, kind of switching gears just a little bit.

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: Um, when you think about the March on, uh, Frankfort in '64, is there any particular memories you have of all of that?

POWERS: I have lots of memories of that, yes. I know two weeks before the 87:00event, March the fifth, we had a flood here and, uh, the office where we were, uh, the basement was flooded. And, uh, Frank Stanley, Jr., had to bring, uh, auxiliary heat and auxiliary lighting so Lukey and I could work. Um-hm. So, that's very vivid, vivid in my mind. And then, um, uh, my brother who owns, uh, Lawrence Montgomery, who owns, uh, Hathaway, uh, Hathaway & Clark Funeral Home, I had contacted him to, uh, it was my job to pick Dr. King and Jackie Robinson up at the airport and bring them into Frankfort. So he picked me up and we went to the airport, and Jackie got in. He jumped in the front seat with my brother Lawrence. And I sat in the back with Dr. King. And all the way to Frankfort, I'm briefing him on what's going on in the House. You know, what's, what was going on, that, uh, we didn't have all the votes to pass the bill, and this, that, and 88:00the other. And so, anyway, when we got to Frankfort, it was so crowded, the state troopers had to just, we, we stopped. And when we got out of the limousine, they just crowded around, you know, and then we finally got to the, uh, the staff-, what do you call those, uh, on, that they put on the steps, you know? Scaffold?

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: The platform. And went up, walked on up there. And, uh, he spoke. Jackie Robinson spoke. Abernathy was there. And, uh, uh, mm, a couple of other civil rights leaders. But, anyway, uh, I kept thinking, I said, all these people, and the Governor's sitting in his office, Ned Breathitt, I'd worked for him the year before. I said, "He needs to come out here and say something to these people." But he didn't. So I took Jackie Robinson, Dr. King, the Reverend, 89:00uh, and, uh, uh, who else would have been there, uh, Sampson, and some of those big time, uh, preachers. I took eight people in there. When I knocked on the door, June Taylor, who had been his office manager at the Seelbach, she said to me, "Georgia, I never thought you would do a thing like this." I said, "June, I never thought, when I worked a whole year for Breathitt, and everybody got a job in Frankfort but me. Nobody offered me a job." I said, "I didn't know I was supposed to get a piece of the pie." So I walked right on past her, took the people in there, introduced them to the Governor. He was sitting behind a desk, you know, he had that little grin. And I introduced them. And Dr. King asked him, he said, "Now Governor, uh, what can you do to help us get this bill passed?"And ----------(??)---------- say he just got sworn in on January twentieth, and he'd only been there, you know, since then. This is March the 90:00fifth, and he hasn't had a chance to build up rapport with the legislators and all that other stuff. So he said, "But I'll do what I can." So we left there and, and brought them back to Louisville. So, that was it.

SMITH: So you basically just, I mean, you, you set that meeting up yourself.

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: You just intentionally just--

POWERS: Just knocked on, just knocked on the door and went in. And, and I've done that with many, every governor I've worked under, five governors. And they always had a side door. I saw Julian Carroll two weeks ago Sunday at the theater, and he hugged me. He said, "Well, what are you talking about? (??) We've been friends for thirty years." Said, "She, every time she knocked on my door, she got what she wanted." And I've knocked on every one of 'em's door. Um-hm.

SMITH: So, um, you know, just in terms of, when we think about Breathitt's role--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --in '64--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --and you had these different people, you had Norbert Blume, and you had ----------(??)--

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: -- and all of them--

POWERS: Yes.

SMITH: --there was going back and forth--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --in terms of the '64 deal--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --how do you think Breathitt handled that? Were you disappointed in his leadership during that time--

POWERS: Uh--

SMITH: --or--

POWERS: --well, I was disappointed at the time. I got, because, you know, the governors back then had all power. They could do anything they wanted to. And I thought he would, should have been able to do whatever he wanted to do. What I realized is, after I got there, is that he didn't have any power. He just got there and, he had, you know. But, uh, '66, we came back strong.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: John Y. Brown, Sr., remember him?

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Not John Y., Jr., who was governor, his dad was in the House for years, he and Norbert Blume and, uh, some of those other leaders in the House, they're the ones that pushed that through in '66. And that become law. You know, the Kentucky Civil Rights Act.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: That's, that was in '66.

SMITH: Do you think, um, you know, Frank Stanley, Jr., was very critical of Breathitt in '64, and led that, uh, demonstration, that hunger strike--

POWERS: Well--

SMITH: --uh, in the Capitol gallery. Do you know any--

POWERS: I know all about it.

SMITH: (laughs) Okay.

POWERS: Not some (??), I know all about it, because my son was one of them. Yeah, I got a picture of him when they were in the gallery. That was kind of a, that was, uh, of something he thought of. And we only had about five or six young people, and may-, and one adult. Remember I told you Jasper Ward, the architect, Lukey's husband, he had a woman that worked, an older woman that worked in his office. She was an architect. And she was very liberal-minded, and she was one of them. She was the older person, white woman. And, uh, so that was his idea. But it didn't have any effect on the legislature at all. They were there. And, um, it was supposed to have been a hunger strike, which they weren't. (laughs) You know. But--

SMITH: Did any of the legislators, uh, say anything to you following that march? Uh, af-, uh during that day, or later on, comment about--

POWERS: They com-, they completely ignored it. They completely ignored the sit-in. They completely ignored it; they had nothing to say about it. They knew it was ineffective.

SMITH: But what about the march, though?

POWERS: Oh, the march was different.

SMITH: What, what did they say to you about, did they say anything to you about the march?

POWERS: ----------(??)--

SMITH: 'Cause this is '64--

POWERS: Sixty-four.

SMITH: --so this is before you were in the Senate--

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: --or anything.

POWERS: Yeah, they didn't know me, they didn't know anything about me. Uh, no, I don't recall anything--

SMITH: Which is actually--

POWERS: --except--

SMITH: Which is actually even more bold of you in '64--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --to just go right into the governor's office. And you didn't hold a political office yourself.

POWERS: Yeah, but I had worked for him a whole year. You know, I worked for you, I got you elected. I helped you get elected. Uh, you know, I thought, well, you know, I don't, uh, this is my prerogative. I'm going in here to see him. I worked for him. Yeah. And that, you know, I wasn't shy about that. Um-hm.

SMITH: Did he say anything to you afterwards--

POWERS: No.

SMITH: --like, "Georgia, don't do that anymore"?

POWERS: No. No, no, no, no. He wouldn't dare say that. Everybody knows they wouldn't say that. (laughs) No, no, he didn't say that. No. I didn't, I never really, ne-, next time I saw him, we were good friends. We were on a platform together several times after that. We were just friendly, you know. And, uh, of course, the last time I saw him, um, was, it was in Frankfort or Lexington. It was some affair, we were on the platform together. We were just friendly. And, uh, the, yeah. But it, it always amuses me when, who was it deceased, and they had the body in the rotunda, um, and all the, uh, former governors were there. And so I came into the rotunda, and all the former governors were sitting in the first row, front row, like that. When I came in, all of them stood up ----------(??). All of them hugged me, kissed me on the cheek. Last one was 95:00Louie Nunn. And he stood up, he said, "Don't I get a hug, too?"I said, "Of course you do." You know, yeah.

SMITH: What was, uh, if you might recall, what was King's impression of Breathitt? You know, when you-all left that issue meeting in '64--

POWERS: Um-hm. Um-hm.

SMITH: --going back to your cars or whatever--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --did King say anything?

POWERS: Yeah. He thought he was a, a weak governor, you know, that was his impression because he couldn't tell any-, anything that he was, uh, going to do, or planned to do. You know, no plans. He, he thought it was just weak. Um-hm. Didn't think he'd make a good governor. But he turned out to be a pretty good governor.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But, uh, yeah.

SMITH: What about, uh, Norbert Blume? What do you remember about him?

POWERS: Uh, I remember everything about him. The reason I do is, because when I ran in '67, Norbert Blume was a representative in the West End. And he had all 96:00the, uh, Portland area, which was dominantly, uh, poor whites. And, um, when I announced that I was running for, he was running, too. He ran, and I pulled him, uh, Mar-, uh, Hughes McGill and Mae Street Kidd into the same office, and we had a joint office. He was the white guy in the joint office. And, uh, so he was--my opponent, who was selected by the Democratic Executive Committee, was, uh, Dr., Dr., um, he was a chiropractor, Riggs, Dr. Riggs. And, uh, but Norb told me, he says, "Don't believe anything they tell you." Said, "They will try to trick you." And I said, "Okay." He said, "You've got to keep your eyes open." The ballot that year was a, a yard long. There were thirty-six, uh, thirty-six ele-, 97:00elections on there. And the, the Executive Committee endorsed, made an endorsement in each one, except my race. He told me, "Um-hm, you've got to really watch them." He said, "What they'll try to do is, they'll get a sticker and put it in your opponent's name when they give out the, the, uh--

SMITH: Sample.

POWERS: --sample ballots, it will have his name on it." Sure enough, the night before the elections, several precinct captains called me and said somebody had stamped his name into his slot.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I said, "Really?" "Yeah." I said, "Okay." So early the next morning, Raoul took have the precincts, and I took the other half. We went to each precinct. I walked up boldly and asked the precinct captain to please come outside. I said, "May I see your sample ballot?" Ahe showed it to me. I said, "Did you stamp this here?" "No, ma'am. I didn't; it was like that when I got it 98:00last night from headquarters." I said, "Okay." And they were in a r-, a big roll, you know. I said, "Okay, I'm taking this roll with me." I said, she said, "Well, I, I--" I said, "I, nothing." I said, "If you don't give it to me," I said, "I'm going to have you locked up for, for tampering with the ballot." (Smith laughs) I don't know that I can do this, but it worked. So I went to every precinct. I threw all the sample ballots in the trunk of my car. Raoul was doing the same thing. We had all those young people out there on the corners, passing out my lec-, my material Election Day. They ----------(??) those sample ballots.

SMITH: I want to ask you something--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --about, uh, this is during, um, during the time that you are serving in the Senate--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: And that is, uh, you know, that, uh, you know, the riot that took place here in '68, and you had, uh, the Black Six, uh, the gentlemen who were arrested for allegedly--

POWERS: And lady.

SMITH: Um-hm, and the lady--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --for allegedly, uh, you know, conspiring to destroy property and that sort of thing. Um, an-, any thoughts about that--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --that whole--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --incident?

POWERS: By that time, I owned a house at Twenty-eighth and Greenwood. It was two doors from the corner. The first floor, I, uh, let the Kentucky Christian Leadership Conference use it for their office. And I had the second floor rented out.

SMITH: Excuse me. What was the address of that house?

POWERS: Ten twenty-four.

SMITH: Ten twenty-four.

POWERS: It's no longer there.

SMITH: Ten twenty-four, what was it?

POWERS: South Twenty-Eighth.

SMITH: South Twenty-Ei-, And that's where, that was the office of the, uh--

POWERS: The KCLC. After we moved out of the church office down next to, uh, Zion--

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: --in '65, uh, that was, I let them use the first, uh--

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: --floor for their office for free, you know. And, uh, Raoul was the executive director of KCLC, that' s what we called him, because A.D. was here 100:00then, you know, and he was all involved in this, too. And Luke was involved, and, and, uh, so the night of the riot, I was at Joe's Palm Room on Jefferson. The news media had asked me to come in and speak at a banquet, their banquet. So we were there enjoying the evening. We just sat down to eat, and somebody came up to me, uh, just before I was getting ready to speak, we were just finishing eating, and said, "Senator, uh, there's a riot at Twenty-Eighth and Greenwood." Well when I announced that, everybody left. I didn't have to speak. (both laugh) I didn't speak that night. So then, of course, I got in my car and I went to Twenty-Eighth and Greenwood, 'cause I wanted to see what was going on, 'cause, you know, my place is there. When I got there, Raoul was in, he had made it to the office. And, um, uh, what happened is, they claimed that, uh, who was it 101:00they claimed was coming to speak, a radical. Who was he?

SMITH: Oh, Stokely Carmichael.

POWERS: Stokely Carmichael.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Well, Stokely wasn't coming here.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So they just put that out, some of those young radicals, you know. But they had a guy here that kind of looked like him, and he was radical, too. But there were people, in that time, it was on my property 'cause I owned the cleaners on the corner and the restaurant next door. So, let's see, let me see, let me get that right. Yeah, it was my, it was my property after that. Because a Jewish fellow owned it before, before the riot.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: I got it after the riot. And so, anyway, they were standing up on their truck bed, and this guy was talking. I was down in the (??) ----------(??), getting ready to speak, when it happened.

SMITH: Now, where were you getting ready to speak again?

POWERS: At, uh--

SMITH: What was the name of the place?

POWERS: Um, Joe's Palm Room.

SMITH: Joe's--

POWERS: They had a dining room.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: Where was that located?

POWERS: Nineteenth and Jefferson.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Um-hm. Yeah, and, uh, so, uh, I went down there and of course it was, it was going on big time. Yeah. The riot was. That's when Merv (??) Alperson (??) was reporting to the Courier-Journal--

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: --he was not a, a journalist then. That's how he got to be a journalist--

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: --'cause they were afraid to come in there. And the police were advising, even those white media people who left where I was, that they should not go in there. And they shouldn't have. So, uh, yeah. Uh, I went there and we stayed till things calmed down.

SMITH: Were you able to say anything to o sort of calm things--were people listening to you, um--

POWERS: I was not trying to say anything. (Smith laughs) I was not trying to 103:00get out there in the middle of that mess with these young people running crazy and going crazy. Stealing and looting, 'cause across the street from us were businesses. And they were breaking in the liquor store. And the, and, uh, I don't know if you know Vicki Stone. Well anyway, it was a nice article in, in the Courier-Journal, somehow she and her husband, a love story. Anyway, her father had a restaurant, a electronic, electric shop across the street, and there was a grocery store. And they were breaking into all those different businesses and looting, you know. And I was not going out there. I was just staying in the house and on the porch. And then, by that time, the National Guard had come in. They were lined up right down in front of my place.

SMITH: Um-hm. How do you think the Governor handled that? Louie Nunn?

POWERS: What did he do? Let's see. Did he send the National Guard? Yeah, he sent the National Guard. Yeah. We needed them, too.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Yeah. Um-hm. He did that. I think he probably saved some lives--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --by sending the, the National Guard in.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: 'Cause these young people, they were really ----------(??), and they didn't care.

SMITH: Um-hm. Let me ask you this question, um, is there any one thing that clicked with you in '66 that said, "I am running for the Senate here in Kentucky." Is, is there--

POWERS: No.

SMITH: Is there an incident or anything, or was it just a combination of--

POWERS: Oh, that one I told you about, Lloyd Clapp--

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: --and that was a prophetic statement. I need a seat of my own here. January of '67, I read in the Courier Journal, where Bernie Bonn (??), the senator of this district (??) was moving to the East End.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: In the same day I read it, the next day I went in the courthouse and filed.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: See. And that's when, uh, that's when it began. I filed then.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: And I had a couple of ladies who, it was, uh, I shouldn't say that, 105:00because I'm, I'm one, now, old ladies--(laughs)--who invited me to speak at their charity pity club--

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: --of about fifteen women. And I spoke to them, uh, uh, a couple weeks before that. And, uh, I thought, I said, "Well, I'm," and Miss Smith was one of them, it was her club.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: So I thought it would be proper to ask her--

SMITH: Verna Smith.

POWERS: Verna Smith.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: To sign my papers, as she's the one who really got me started. And, uh, and I told her to bring another wo-, person, but all fifty--fifteen of them came.

SMITH: How would you describe her, Verna Smith, since she had a pivotal role?

POWERS: She was not too tall. She was kind of motherly looking. Or, or, uh, she was, uh, had beautiful silver-gray hair. She was brown-skinned, not light brown skin, but, you know, beautiful brown. And, uh, very distinguished. She was not too tall but she, she was hippy, you know, she had a matronly figure. But a very 106:00nice woman. Um-hm.

SMITH: But she was a white woman?

POWERS: No, no, no, no, no. She was black people.

SMITH: Oh, Verna Smith was?

POWERS: Yeah, she was black, and J. E. (??) Smith, too, her husband.

SMITH: Oh, I'm thinking that, uh--

POWERS: Unh-uh.

SMITH: --Verna Smith was a white woman.

POWERS: No, unh-uh.

SMITH: Who was at the Presbyterian Church.

POWERS: At the Presbyterian Church, yeah. I knew her from the time I joined when I was sixteen.

SMITH: Yeah. So how, w-, so how did she have this connection with Wilson Wyatt, then?

POWERS: Well, she was, you know, there were, there were several, uh, I call them elitist blacks in this city, who would, uh, at Election Day, they'd go down to the headquarters. Lennie would give them the checks to pay the precinct captains. It was a big deal. See, they were big shots. On Election Day, they'd have the checks to pay the precinct captain. They'd go pay the precinct--pay it. So they thought that was a big political deal. And so, uh, she was one of those 107:00people that, that worked for, you know, on Election Day. Um-hm. Passed out mon-, and B-, William Summers, and a lot of the others. That's the one that they wanted to run against me, because got angry because I didn't ask them if I could run.

SMITH: Okay. So, uh, now what kind of job did Verna Smith have?

POWERS: She didn't have no job. Her husband was secretary of Domestic Life Insurance Company. She didn't need no job. And Charlotte Smith was her--

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: --Charlotte McGill was her daughter.

SMITH: Yeah, I got that.

POWERS: She just had the one daughter. And she was married to Hughes McGill.

SMITH: Um-hm. Right. Okay.

POWERS: And Hughes was elected the same time I was.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: He died. She took his place.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm. Yeah.

SMITH: Is, um, when you, when you look back on all of that, um, when you sort of really look back at your political career, um, what was the angriest you can recall that you, the most angry you felt during--

POWERS: Hmm.

SMITH: --the years that you served in the Senate, that, you know, just, just really got to you. Is there any incident, or any speech made that you heard, or--

POWERS: I think the angriest I ever got was, uh, you know, after the incident with, uh, Chandler at UK, uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --using the "N" word.

SMITH: Yeah, 1988.

POWERS: Yeah. Well, it wasn't long after that, he came to the Senate. And I got up and left the chamber. Because I did not want to greet him; I did not want to talk to him; I didn't want to speak to him. I just left the chamber. I was, uh, I think I w-, I don't know whether I was angry or just disgusted with him as a leader, you know, formally, than, and, to think that he would use that type of language. But that's about the worst. Because, to tell you honestly, in the 109:00Sen-, when I was in the Senate, there were times when I introduced a bill, David Karem would second every bill I introduced, regardless of what it was. And the only vote it got would be mine. And I would say to David--(laughs)--"David, I thought you was going to vote with me." He said, "I didn't tell you I was going to vote with you. I just told you I'd second your motion." That's all? Okay." But, you know, 'cause I was always introducing what they thought was radical stuff.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Yeah. Anything I'd see that was in-, not right, I'd say, "There ought to be a law against that."

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And simple, a lot of simple things, like, double locks on hotel doors in Kentucky must have a safety lock.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Uh, that. And removing race from operator's license because of the incident that happened to me, and, uh, just bills like that. Uh, they weren't all open housing bill, or--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --uh, every year I would add to, uh, the, uh, statute, uh, 345, I think 110:00it is, open houses, to prohibit discrimination against, uh, because of sex and age, and I kept adding to it every session.

SMITH: Hmm. So where did you get, um, the ideas for bills? Were people sending you suggestions?

POWERS: No.

SMITH: Or were you--

POWERS: I didn't get ten letters in twenty-one years from any constituents. Nobody ever wrote me. Everybody, when they saw me, they said, "We like what you're doing. Speaking up for us." And they still saying it. You know, last night, this woman sat here. And I just met her, uh, at the last NAACP meeting. And I invited her last night, 'cause she joined NAACP. And she, when she joined, she said, "I joi-, I came to join the NAACP because I want to work." What did she say that for? So I invited her last night and gave her a job, too. But, you see, she sat here. And she, I had six people over here, and I had a table here, 111:00a round table here, with four people. And, uh, she said to me, she said, "You know, I cannot thank you enough for what you've done for my people. And all of us." She just went on and on and on. I'm thinking, how does this woman know all of this, what I've done. Because most people don't.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: You know, these, they just think they gave me that expressway for nothing. They think I did nothing, I guess. And, uh, but I was surprised. And she said, "Whatever you want me to do, I'm going to do it." All ten of these women here last night. I was amazed. They all came.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I served them a good meal, though. (Smith laughs) But they didn't know they were going to get a good meal. But, now, I've got them organized to go to Frankfort on the twenty-sixth. I go-, I had a woman call me today, uh, Ruby Doyle. And I've got one of her books up there. She called me and asked me, uh, uh, said she had three people that wanted to go.

SMITH: I saw that in the paper Sunday.

POWERS: What?

SMITH: It's an article in the Herald-Leader. About this, um, you know, basically, event, this march--

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: --uh, Frankfort, on the twenty-sixth. You were quoted in there, speaking.

POWERS: What did I say? (laughs)

SMITH: I can't remember. (laughs)

POWERS: I don't know, either.

SMITH: But you said, one thing you said, you were talking about taking a, a--

POWERS: Caravan?

SMITH: Um-hm. Of women from Louisville.

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: That's what I organized last night.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I got all these women, the ones who going to drive, the ones who needed a ride. 'Cause I got people calling me who want to just ride, can't drive.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm. Yeah. That's what I'm doing.

SMITH: So are you going to be, you're, you're one of the keynote speakers, or--

POWERS: I'm just on-, as far as I know, I'm just one of the speakers.

SMITH: One of the speakers.

POWERS: I don't know. They told me they want a speaker. But I have, it's so funny last night. I said, "Now, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do." I said, "You going to give me the microphone, it's dangerous."Because I take privilege, personal privilege." I said, "Now, when I start off," I said, "I'm going to say, 'We're here for a celebration of the ninetieth anniversary of the 113:00women's suffrage, you know, and all that.' Then I'm going to say, 'I want you all to help me with a little ditty.'" And I got them, I had them doing it last night, right here. I said, "This is the way it goes: If you're happy you can vote, clap your hands." You heard that?

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: "If you're happy you can vote, clap your hands, if you're happy, if you're happy, clap--" you know, that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And so, I had them doing a nice job. I said, "Now, when I say that," I said, "I want every one of you opening your mouth and making noise." I said, "This is a celebration." I said, "What we're going to do is celebrate." I said, "Black women can vote, too, you know; it wasn't just Susan B. Anthony."

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And I said, "And I also want to talk about Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell, and also Frederick Douglass. They were all involved in the mo-, movement, and nobody seems to remember that. But I'm reminding you that they 114:00were there."

SMITH: What do you think about, um, um, the political relationship between black women and white women? And not so much politics, but in terms of the way they've worked together for, uh, issues--

POWERS: Well--

SMITH: --that--

POWERS: I can tell you this.

SMITH: --they both identify with. What, what, what has been your experience?

POWERS: My experience has been with white women, especially, um, affluent white women. There are some who are liberal-minded and like to be associated in the movement. But let me tell you this, you don't in-, you don't get invited to their, their dinner parties. And you don't invite them to your dinner parties, either. No. That doesn't work. It doesn't happen. So, I have not had that--Lukey and I, we worked together. She had dinner parties, but I, I was never invited. I had dinner parties. I never invited her.

SMITH: Why is that the case?

POWERS: I don't know. Be-, we, uh, we just didn't. And she, uh, I don't know, we didn't. But, uh, I never had a, I've never had a, a close, uh, relationship 115:00with a white woman close enough to, for her to come to my house, I'd go to her house. No. Oh, no. Unh-uh. I don't get that close to people. Unh-uh. And I don't let people get that close to me.

SMITH: Do you think white women have, um, in the state of Kentucky, do you think that they have been strong supporters of civil rights for African Americans?

POWERS: Some.

SMITH: Some.

POWERS: Yeah. A few. A few.

SMITH: But just in terms as a group, when you-all get together, you know, in a couple of weeks, um, you know, I'm just wondering, what kind of unity is there? This is what I'm wondering.

POWERS: I'll tell you one thing. White women respect position. A white woman will never call me Georgia. Black women will. And when they see me, it's Senator this, and Senator that, you know. They respect that. In this group last night, 116:00they called me Senator. It's beginning to sound like my first name. Yeah, really.

SMITH: What do you prefer to be called?

POWERS: Senator. That's who I am. Yeah. That's my name--(laughs)--I think. But, anyway, uh, yeah, that's what they call me. Um-hm. Dr. King never called me anything but Senator. He has never called me Georgia. Unh-uh. Senator. 'Cause, you know, he came here to help me get elected. He came here three times in '67 for voter registration. And then he sent five members of his baddest crew to come here to get the vote out. They got the vote out, at, out of the projects. 'Cause they were tough, you know. They'd go and you talking about you ain't going to vote, they'll pull you out of there. Yeah.

SMITH: Is that right?

POWERS: Oh, yeah. He sent five of them. Big James Orange, and, um-hm, yeah, 117:00five of them. And they went into the projects; they dragged those people out to vote. "What do you mean you no-, you're not going to vote? Yeah, you're going out of here."

SMITH: Oh, physically dragged them out?

POWERS: They would.

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: They'd threaten them so they'd think they would. Um-hm. Yeah, he'd send five of them here. Yeah. Just to help you get the vote out. Um-hm. Of course, then I got to tell you the rest. I had to buy lots of half a pints of wine, or pints of whatever they bought. I don't know what it was. But I furnished the money. That, uh, they bought whatever they needed. And they passed it on. I don't know what they did, but they got them out. To vote. See, a lot of times you have to do things that are not according to, not orthodox--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --but otherwise, you can't win.

SMITH: How would you describe politics in Kentucky? Is it, I mean, yeah, I know 118:00some people, uh, who are very politically minded. Is it dirty politics? Is it, how would you describe it?

POWERS: Okay. Glad you asked that. Because a fellow asked me that yesterday. He doesn't vote. And he says that it's just all dirty politics. When I announced that I was running for office, I went to a meeting one night in a basement of a church, I never shall forget. A man got up and he said, "Well, why would you want to get involved in politics? It's just a dirty game." I said, "That's exactly the reason I'm getting in there. They need honest, truthful people in politics. And we sit back and say how dirty it is and don't get involved, then it's going to get worse."

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I said, "That's the reason I'm, I'm going to run."And then he asked me, "Well, why should I vote for you as a black person and a woman? They ain't never had no black woman in the, in the Senate, no black man, either." I said, "Another reason I'm running."

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But I didn't know until I got there that there were no blacks in there 119:00and no women in there.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm. But I got sworn in.

SMITH: What are some of the dirtiest things you've seen in politics?

POWERS: Well, I didn't know about the Bop trial [Operation Boptrot]. That circumvented--(laughs)--me. I knew nothing about that. You know, eighteen of them went to jail?

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Yeah. I didn't know anything about that. And after, I saw all this in the paper. I thought, well nobody ever said anything to me. You know why they didn't? They knew the next morning I'd be on the floor talking about it. Probably would have got killed.

SMITH: Yeah (laughs).

POWERS: I didn't know that was going on. And, and then when I read, for three or four hundred dollars, they would jeopardize their reputation for that? No. No, I wouldn't do it for three hundred thousand, you know. No, they, un-uh, and see, then, Helen Garrett (??), we had a woman in the Senate; she was involved with them. 'Cause when Tom Garrett, her husband, was found dead, he was my seatmate--

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: --she took his place. I thought, well, I'm so glad to have a woman in here. We can work together. Unh-uh. She was so b-, busy trying to look cute and 120:00get her another husband out of that, uh, old boys' club, that she went along with them, and she was about to go to jail. But when she went to court, she went in a wheelchair and said she had a stroke. And so they gave her probation. Yeah. But, uh, it's, you know--

SMITH: Anything else? I mean, you know, you were, I mean, you were in the thick of it. I'm sure you were hearing stuff from different corners, and--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --you know--

POWERS: I didn't hear anything about that till it was over. That's what's a-, amazes me. It's going on in the House, and there were a few in the Senate--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --that were involved. But I didn't know a thing about it.

SMITH: What about when you first came to the Senate in, in the sixtie-, in the late sixties? I mean, what did--

POWERS: In sixty-eight?

SMITH: Yeah. What did, what did you see that--

POWERS: When, when, when I got sworn in, I looked around, and I thought, Oh my God, my, thirty-seven white men and me. I said, I don't know what I, I said, I 121:00don't know what I was asking for. And I thought, I said, well, I'm here now. And, uh, I'm on a mission. I considered it a mission.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And I thought, God had my life planned out before I was even born.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And I, that's how I think about it now.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: 'Cause I had no right to be there, particularly. I wasn't politically educated, you know--

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

POWERS: And I wasn't involved. My parents weren't involved in politics. Nobody in my family. Why me?

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But, you see, when I, when I, when I decided that I was on a mission--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --there was no way I could fail. No way. Every morning I went into that chamber. When I went in there and I got to my seat, I prayed and asked God to lead, guide, and direct me that day. To teach me what to say--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --and what not to say.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: That was important. Um-hm. So, I made it through. And that's how I made it through.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: The truth about the matter.

SMITH: Did the church have any role in, and when I say, "the church," I'm talking about the African American church in particular, in your getting elected? I mean, did they help get out the vote? Or, you know, was there any sort of--

POWERS: Well, let me tell you who supported me in my first election. Who endorsed me. The first endorsement I got was from the Kentucky AFL-CIO, which was a big endorsement.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: They were located on Broadway on the second floor of 7060 Broad-, East Broadway. They had a printing shop in the back of their office.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: They endorsed me because W.C. Young, who's an African American, he was on, uh, whose staff was it, uh, in Frankfort, and they became governor? Was it Breathitt, '60, uh, no, it was after that. Anyway, I asked him if he could get me an appointment with his executive board, 'cause he was the only black on it. 123:00He did. And they endorsed me. I told them what I fav-, what I was going there and now what I wanted to do.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: You know, I wanted to eliminate discrimination and inequality and all that stuff, you know, and I was pro-union because my dad was a union man, and, uh, uh, I thought unions were good for the average person. I told them all of this. They endorsed me. Well, I didn't have any money, but it meant that I got, uh, all my printing free. And they gave me radio spots. Paid for radio spots for me and stuff like that. AFL-CIO. The Louisville Education Association endorsed me. The Louisville Medical Association endorsed me. The Louisville Dental Association endorsed me. Several black churches endorsed me. The Louisville Defender endorsed me.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: The Courier-Journal endorsed me. I got all those endorsements. That meant money, 'cause they were sending me contributions.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: 'Cause I didn't have any money, because, see, what I didn't finish telling you, the person that the black elitists w--wanted to put into the race against me, I knew that if he ran against me and the white chiropractor, that we'd put the white chiropractor in. 'Cause we, he and I would split the black vote.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So, while I was down there at, in the Seelbach Hotel, working for those candidates, I learned how to get people out of the race. So you know what I did? I went right down here on Fourth Street to Beneficial Loan Company, 'cause I had sent two preachers, two black preachers, to go and ask him what would it take for him to get out of the race. They came back and said, "Well, a thousand dollars." I said, "Oh, okay. Gee, I have no money." So I go to Beneficial Loan Company. I borrowed a thousand dollars. On my own. On my signature. So I gave it 125:00to these two preachers to take to him. I said, "Don't give it to him until you get a letter from him stating that he's fully supporting me because he's so busy he's unable to serve."

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: 'Cause he's, uh, he's pastoring a church, too.

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

POWERS: And plus he's head of WLOU.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Manager. So they came back with the letter. Now, I don't know whether he got it all or not. I kind of doubt it. I mean, I'm serious. I kind of doubt that he got the whole thousand. I think some got skimmed. And, one was my good friend A.D. and Leo Lesser. That's who I sent. That was my emissaries.

SMITH: Yeah (??).

POWERS: Um-hm. So I said, "That's okay, as long as you, you got the letter." So, they, he didn't get in the race or try to run, you know. He's going to support me.

SMITH: So did black women, any of the black women's clubs, or black women's clubs--

POWERS: No.

SMITH: --excuse me, any of the black women's clubs--

POWERS: No. I've never been a club woman.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Neither sorority nor any--

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: --other women's organization. Uh, I got turned against that when I was, uh, nineteen, eighteen years old, before I left Louisville. 'Cause I had pledged to the AKAs. And then when I looked at it, and they had all these pledgees and they all light-skinned. And then I started hearing words about it, that the light women went for AKA. The Deltas were medium brown. And then the Zetas were the darkest, and I said, I don't want no part of that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Unh-uh. That's discrimination.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And that's the way it was then, too. And the AKAs had given me a two-year scholarship the first two years I went.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: They paid for it. But I still didn't want no parts of it then. Then I knew, I knew it wasn't right. So, but no, I've never been, a lot of women's 127:00organizations have tried to get me involved. No. Because I don't see them doing anything constructive for people, for our people. You know, they have, uh, fundraisers and maybe they give scholarships. I don't know what they do. Mostly, I think, they gossip. And I ain't got time for that. Like I told them last night, I said, "I didn't come down here to gossip. 'Cause I ain't got nothing to gossip about. And you don't either, in my (??) house." Um-hm. Oh, I just, you know what? I'm going to tell you something. You know what amazes me myself? Amazes me how I smile and tell people the truth--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --whatever it is. You know, I just be smiling and cutting you down, too. (Smith laughs) I, well, you know, you have to. You have to be truthful, you know. Last night, I had some music on. Who was it, uh, Seal. You know Seal?

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And so, uh, I was standing up here in the floor and I was, you know, I 128:00think I was dancing. So they got so excited. So one of them said to me, said, "You need to go to Jerry Green's with us." I said, "For what? Who's Jerry Green?" "You know, he's an entertainer down on ----------(??) Road somewhere, and he's got a show." They said, "Girl, you'd be good, 'cause," said, "you can dance." I said, "Yeah, I did dance, but I don't go out nowhere dancing." And I was just showing off in here--

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

POWERS: --you see. And, uh, she said, "Well, it's not a bad place. I wouldn't take you no place that would be--" I said, "No." I said, "No. That wouldn't be a place I'd want to go to. I don't go there." So you can think what you want to, you know. Yeah. So--

SMITH: Here's what I want to do--

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: I want to, uh--

POWERS: Ask me what you ----------(??). I get off subject--

SMITH: No, no, that's fine. I'm really enjoying--(laughs)--I want to, um, just kind of go through this list of folk.

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: That I talk about--

POWERS: All right.

SMITH: So I'm going to throw them out--

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: --and you, and you can give me as many, many details. Please. Uh, 129:00whatever you thought your memories of your, uh, encounters with them--

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: I want to start with, uh, Chandler.

POWERS: Chandler.

SMITH: Happy Chandler.

POWERS: Happy Chandler. I always thought he was a phony when he claimed that he's responsible for Jackie Robinson being the first African American playing baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers. From that, from that time I thought, I thought it was, um, not Chandler but the other guy who was, uh, ----------(??), he had a title.

SMITH: Um-hm. Yeah, the commissioner.

POWERS: Commissioner. Yeah. I thought he was the one responsible. And he was taking all the credit.

SMITH: Did Jackie Robinson, when he came, did he say anything about Chandler, do you recall?

POWERS: No. No.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: He didn't say anything.

SMITH: I just wondered if he did.

POWERS: No. He didn't even mention him. Unh-uh.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: No. And then, of course, I told you when he came to the Senate, I left. After, after I'd, you know, heard about what he said and the "N" word.

SMITH: You know, Chandler sent in, uh, you know, National Guard down in Sturgis, Kentucky, you know, in '56.

POWERS: He did what?

SMITH: Sent the National Guard into--

POWERS: Yeah, Clinton, Kentucky.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: Down in there, deep down--

POWERS: What was going on? A riot? I forgot.

SMITH: Yeah. There were some white parents that were protesting--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --the integration of the school.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: And I was wondering, um, I mean, would you consider him someone, you know, based on your conversations with him, observations and so on--

POWERS: I've never had a conversation with him.

SMITH: You've never had a conver-, okay.

POWERS: No. Never.

SMITH: All right. Ned Breathitt.

POWERS: And, as I told you before, he was running against Ned across the street.

SMITH: Right.

POWERS: So I was never in his camp. Ned Breathitt. I thought Ned was as easy going, uh, I didn't really think he was, uh, too politically smart. But I thought he was fairly intelligent, I guess, to become governor. Uh, he smiled a lot. And, um, I thought more of him in later years when, uh, he got older, I 131:00guess because he got more mature. And we talked, you know, but, uh--

SMITH: Do you think he's a, a leader in civil rights? I mean, in your opinion, does he belong--

POWERS: No, he was a, no--

SMITH: --in the Civil Rights Hall of Fame?

POWERS: No, no, they try to make him a leader, but he was not a leader in civil-, what did he lead? What did he do in civil rights? I, I don't know about--

SMITH: And I'm just, you know, I guess, you know, because of signing the Civil Rights Act of '66--

POWERS: Yeah. Mm.

SMITH: --but you never really considered him to be in that--

POWERS: Not a leader.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: He's, he was governor. You know, he could do one of three things. Sign it, veto it, or let it become law without his signature like Nunn did with my bill.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Um-hm. So, no, I never considered him a civil rights leader.

SMITH: Okay. Well, what about Wilson? Let's say maybe that's a poor choice of words. Maybe not leader, but, um--

POWERS: Supporter?

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: He may have been a supporter. I would say he would probably have been a supporter.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: But not a leader.

SMITH: Okay. All right. Nunn. Louie Nunn.

POWERS: Louie Nunn, who did he defeat? Uh, the guy with the highways. He was running for Democratic, uh, governor. Uh, he had been head of the highway department. Anyway, Democrat. Uh, Louie Nunn campaigned against open housing. And, other than that, I don't know what else he did. But, when he became governor, he always treated me with respect. I never knocked on his door when he was governor. Many governors, I knocked on their door. Uh, and, of course, the op-, open housing bill, I didn't know what he was going to do. I really thought 133:00he might veto it, since he campaigned against it.

SMITH: When you say he campaigned against it, what exactly did he do?

POWERS: Said he opposed it. He opposed open housing. When he was running for governor. Um-hm. He opposed it. So, I thought, well, I--

SMITH: Do you know very much about him as a politician? Things that he was doing, and--

POWERS: No.

SMITH: Was he able to, you know, kind of work the African American vote, you know, as a Republican to try to get--

POWERS: I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think he, I don't think he was trying to, uh, develop a relationship with the African American community. And that's is what surprised me when the bill passed in both houses. He let it become law without his signature.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: I was always grateful for that. Because there would have been no way in the world, if he vetoed it, that I could override his veto. Because he had, he's governor. He could offer people jobs. He could offer them a lot of stuff--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --in their districts and stuff.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: See? Whereas, I would have had nothing to offer. So, I appreciated 134:00that. And that's the reason when I was at that, uh, uh, who, was it, it must have been Breathitt's death, yes, it was. When he was lying in state at, uh, in the rotunda and I went in. And when I came out, I told you, he says, uh, "What about me? Aren't you going to give me a hug?" And I gave him a big hug, you know. But, uh, yeah.

SMITH: What about, um, uh, any of the mayors in Louisville in the sixties? Even seventies, for that matter. Any that sort of, uh, you consider them to be strong opponents, you know, had expressed opposition to civil rights? Just thought that they were in the way? ----------(??)--

POWERS: Well, Abramson has been mayor so long, I can't think of any other--(Smith laughs)--any other mayor except Cowger, and, of course, the Democratic candidate helped him to get in when he said he could win without the 135:00black vote. And we showed him.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But, other than that, uh, I don't know of any mayor who was strongly for civil rights or against it.

SMITH: Okay.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: Martha Layne Collins.

POWERS: Martha Layne. I was so happy that she won. You know, just having a woman governor for the first time. I was really happy. And I thought, well, she and I are going to get along fine. I'm in the Senate, and she's--no, she was lieutenant governor then. She was president of the Senate. I thought, well, she can help me a lot in here, and I can help her. And, so, uh, but, uh, we had, uh, it was not a warm rapport. It was just a very polite, uh, rapport, you know? "Hello, how are you doing?" That kind of thing. The only time that we really had conver-, uh, we had conversation was when I told you about the half percent tax. 136:00And she, uh, her--

SMITH: Wh-, wh-, why is that, you think?

POWERS: I don't know. It was unexpected to me. But, uh, now, each president of the Senate, as long as I was there, when the governor, when they had joint sessions, I was always one, I guess, because of being the only woman, or one of two women in there, to escort the governor, you know--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --which, she did do that. And, but, we didn't have a real close relationship at all.

SMITH: Hmm.

POWERS: Unlike the, well, other governors. Like Julian Carroll, for instance. When Julian was governor, he had to go to the restroom or go somewhere, he'd call me up and ask me to conduct the Senate.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But she never did. ----------(??), she never did that. Unh-uh. I thought she would, but she never did.

SMITH: Now, Julian Carroll, wasn't he opposed to the '64 Act?

POWERS: Sixty-four, he was in the House, wasn't he?

SMITH: Um-hm. He was in the House then. And wasn't he among that group that, you know, really wasn't supportive of the state civil rights act is what I'm talking about.

POWERS: Um-hm. You know, I don't, I don't remember. ----------(??)--

SMITH: I just wondered. What about him?

POWERS: I don't know. I, I, I don't know where he stood.

SMITH: What kind of memories do you have of him? Pretty--

POWERS: Well, um, I have a warm feeling about Julian Carroll because, like I say, I could knock on his door any time he was governor. And then when his baby was born, I went to the hospital to see his baby in his, in Frankfort.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And, uh, just a friendly relationship. And when the YWCA, African American, uh, YWCA, was a branch of the regular one, needed, uh, outside stairs to go up to the second floor, they came to me and told me they needed, uh, the stairs.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And I went down and looked at them, and they did. It was ten thousand dollars. I knocked on Julian's door and told him. He said, "Well, you got it. Take it and put it in the budget." And they got their ten thousand dollars, you know, to put the stairs up. So, you know, uh, almost everything, I don't remember anything that I asked Julian to support or do that he didn't do.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: What about John Y. Brown, Jr.?

POWERS: John Y. Brown, Jr., he was a very, um, different kind of governor. He was not the stiff-necked--(laughs)--stiff, you know, governor. He was just John Y. Brown. You could go to him and talk to him about anything. He'd look you dead in the eye and you'd tell him. And I'd look him dead in the eye and, uh, tell him what I wanted. And he, more or less, helped me.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: He, I liked him. Um-hm. I liked him. Um-hm.

SMITH: Any memories of the governors? Did you have any particular memories of something funny? Something sad? Anything that--

POWERS: And Wendell Ford was, I, I, I liked Wendell Ford, too. Wendell Ford, um--

SMITH: What do you think about his leadership?

POWERS: Who, Ford?

SMITH: Wendell Ford. Um-hm.

POWERS: Well, now, Wendell Ford and I started in the Wyatt campaign at the same time. I never dreamed he would go as far as he went. Because when he came here from, where is it, Owensboro to work for Wilson Wyatt, he came here to have a good time, and he did. Partied like crazy. Yeah. And so, it surprised me how he climbed the ladder in politics. But it still had no effect on his mind 'cause he got serious and, you know, he ran for office and kept winning.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And he became a good, uh, politician and a good, uh, leader. Um-hm.

SMITH: Did you ever think about running for governor?

POWERS: Never. Never thought about running for anything other than where I was 140:00in the Senate. I loved being in the Senate. And I thought god was good to me to let me get that far. (laughs) And I certainly didn't want to run for Congress and go to DC, or mayor, and, no, I was not interested in local politics, either. You know, I was just happy to be where I was. I thought I was more effective there than anyplace else. That's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be effective for women, for blacks, for an advocate for children, and the disabled, the disenchanted. All those kind of people who had no voice.

SMITH: Now, let me throw out a few more names.

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: Um, Muhammad Ali.

POWERS: I love Muhammad Ali. I knew him since he was five years old. He lived three doors from my homeplace on Grand. Um, his mother, he and his mother, father and brother, they lived next door to my brother Lawrence. And, uh, as a 141:00matter of fact, he was a babysitter for Lawrence when he, Lawrence and his wife wanted to go out, all he had to do was have a half a gallon of ice cream for him and he'd stay all night babysitting. Um-hm. They were very close. And, uh, of course his, Cassius Clay, Sr., I never thought he was, uh, ment-, I always thought he was mentally challenged, really. 'Cause he was a great commercial artist, but he drank a lot. And, uh, sometimes he wasn't nice to his wife.

SMITH: Oh (??).

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: So you remember when, um, you know, of course when Ali ends up going to jail, going to prison, but that whole trial and all. Did you ever have any communication with him then in those early--

POWERS: No.

SMITH: --days?

POWERS: No, I never had. The only time I had communication with Ali after he became champion ----------(??), I did go to see him fight in Atlanta once. And, 142:00uh, is at that event right there at, uh, Slugger Museum--

SMITH: Oh, Okay.

POWERS: --when he, his book came out. And I was just standing back, and everybody was running up to him, you know, grabbing him and all. I was just kind of standing in the corner. I knew soon as he saw me he'd run straight to me. And he was; he came straight to me. And he and his brother Rahman, they say to me every time I see them, they said, "You know, we just love you; because you were so nice to us when we were little boys." 'Cause I would talk to them and play with them. I have a picture of him when he was five sitting on a little red bike. And, uh--um-hm. But they, every time, they te-, uh, they tell me that. Because I was, 'cause see, I was older than them--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --so, uh, uh, I said, "Well, I had no reason not to be nice to you." They'd come over, be in the yard playing with my brothers. And, uh, and then I'd, every evening, the two of them would sit on their steps next to the sidewalk, and they would be naming the cars that go by. I'd walk down the 143:00street, and I'd stop and talk to them, you know. Give them some candy or whatever, and, uh, naming cars. That's what they did. My family loved Ali and his brother. Um-hm.

SMITH: What about, uh, Lyman Johnson?

POWERS: Lyman Johnson. Well, I didn't know too much about Lyman when he, you know, as a teacher.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I met him as a teacher. He didn't teach me. But, uh, I was happy that, uh, he was able to open up the University of Kentucky for black people. I'll tell you what I was disappointed in reading his autobiography. Have you read that?

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: In some parts of his book he talked about Jesus and Mary in a derogatory way--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --I thought.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And he said that, uh, Joseph was a fool (??) and Mary went around the corner--

SMITH: Mm.

POWERS: --and some joke about--I didn't like that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I thought. And he said that he wasn't a believer, he just went to church to, uh, socialize or something.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But, I had a different opinion of him after I read that book. I said he was just, he was a different man than everybody thought he was.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Um-hm. Than I thought he was. A different person. And when he ran against me, I asked him, I said, "Well, why did you run against me?" He said, "Well, because I want you to spend some money." That was his answer. "I want you to spend your money." I said, "That's kind of stupid reasoning." Yeah. I said, "All you're doing is you're making people give me more money to defeat you." But ----------(??) but, uh--

SMITH: What about, uh, C. Eubank Tucker? Do you remember him?

POWERS: Yes I do. I remember him as being a, a, a radical person. He, uh, I'm 145:00trying to think, what was that he was the ----------(??) for? Something was going on here in Louisville. And most of us were in favor of it, and he was opposed to it. I can't think of what the issue was. But, uh, I liked his wife.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Uh, she was the first African American woman to be elected to the House of Representatives. Yeah, I liked her. Of course, you know, she wasn't able to do much, but she was there.

SMITH: What about Mae Street Kidd?

POWERS: Mae Street Kidd. I met Mae Street Kidd when we both ran in '67. When I learned about who she was, I thought she was a great woman. Because she had been a businesswoman prior to that, before I knew her, with the Mammoth Insurance Company. Her husband at one time was secretary, uh, secretary of the treasury of 146:00the Mammoth Insurance Company. He was a much older man than she was. She was from, uh, M--Melber, Kentucky. And, uh, she didn't have it easy in life because her mother, she had an older brother. Her mother had the brother and then had her by a white man. And then she had one or two, had two more children with an African American man. And, uh, she didn't have it easy. But she, more or less, pulls herself up and, uh, she's dignified. She, one time, one year she sold half a million dollars in insurance for the, for the Mammoth. And she helped the Mammoth in many ways to upgrade, uh, intellectually and, uh, culturally. She was 147:00a great woman. I didn't know her till I ran with her.

SMITH: What kind of relationship did you-all have?

POWERS: We had a great relationship. I made a mistake one time, because I'd always heard of her as Minnie Mae. And one time I called her M-, but when she first, when we first, uh, set up the office with all four of us, she talked to me about that. And she said, uh, "I'm changing my name."And I said, "What are you changing it to?" She said, "Well, how does this sound to you? Mae Street Kidd." I said, "That kind of rhymes." I said, " It has a rhythm to it."

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: She hated Minnie. And, uh, she said, "I'm going to change my name to Mae Street Kidd. The kid on Mae St-, on Main Street," she'd say. I said, "That's a nice name." But I made a mistake and called her Minnie one time, and she cussed me out. Yeah.

SMITH: Is that right?

POWERS: Oh, she curse you out now. Oh, I've seen her grab legislators in the, in the collar, coming out of the House chamber, who voted against her bill, grab 148:00them and say, "Why did you, why the hell did you vote against my bill?" She'd do that. She had a different temperament than I did. You know, I never would have s-, said anything like that to nobody. If you voted against it, I'd go on to the next bill. But, uh, yeah, she, uh, but what we would do is, we would always get, uh, be in the same hotel. And we'd get adjoining rooms. At night, whatever bill she was studying or working on in the House, she'd bring up. We'd read through the bill. And the bills I had coming up, we'd read through the bills, so we'd know what's in the bill. When the rest of the legislators were partying at reception; I went to one reception when I first went there. And then I saw how these men were drinking. And one would call, or pull all over you and dance and all that. I said, "Unh-uh. I didn't come here for that." So, uh, we didn't go to 149:00the parties. If there was a dinner sometimes, with everybody, we'd go. But just, uh, these receptions where they did a lot of drinking.

SMITH: So she would collar legislators, then? Is that--

POWERS: If you call that collar, grab you by the tie.

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: Yeah. She did that. And that's reason, uh, I was having different temperament. Now, when I first went there, we both went there in '68, the, uh, Committee ----------(??), Committee appointed me vice chair of the Health and Welfare Committee. And, she always wanted to be, she always wanted to chair a committee. But she never did get to chair one, the whole time she was there; it was sixteen years, because I think of what she, her attitude during that period of time, you know. Uh, things she said to the legislators, the way she treated 150:00them. Different whole, whole different attitude.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And I was there. And, and, and the second year, the second half of my first term, they appointed me chairper-, chairperson of the Health and Welfare Committee. And I chaired it for six years. But they never would make her chair of anything--

SMITH: Wow.

POWERS: --or no other women over there. There were only about three or four then. And then after that six years, I let Julian Carroll talk me into going on the Rules Committee. He told me how prestigious it was, and, and how, uh, that's the committee that, uh, that, uh, reports out the bills to be voted on. I said, "That sounds good. Yeah." So for two years I was on it. And a-, and after that, I didn't want to be on anymore, because, uh, what happened is, when you're in the Rules Committee Tom Garrett (??), my seatmate, he was, uh, chairman of the Rules Committee. He'd go in there and he'd have a list of bills that he wanted 151:00to report out. And, uh, before you could ask a question about a bill, he had some, he had his people set up to se-, to second the bill, second the motion.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And, and he'd push around until they passed it. I said, "Well, what about so-and-so?" "Too late." (laughs) "I want to ask a question about that bill." "Well, it's over now. It's already voted on." I thought, I don't like this committee. It's too controlled. It's too controlled. So then Labor came to me and asked me, there was an opening as chair of the Labor Committee. Asked me would I accept that. Said they had recommended to the Committee on Committees to appoint me chair of the Labor Committee. I said, "That's fine." That's a very good committee. And, uh, so they did. They appointed me to it. And I, I chaired that for ten years. And, uh, that was more interesting, you know, because I would help Welfare with, Health and Welfare, it was always, um, I was getting a 152:00lot of problems out of the Appalachia for really poor white women who weren't getting enough money a month, you know.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I tried to raise the rate for them to get more money and all that. And I thought, Oh. You know, so I was glad to get to the labor industry. That was more interesting. Workers' comp and workers' insurance and, and, uh, bills like that.

SMITH: Did you get a chance to know Carl and Anne Braden much?

POWERS: I really didn't. I, no, I never knew Carl. Now, Anne, I never really worked with her. She had her own organization. And, uh, actually, Lukey is the one who turned me against Anne when I first got elected. Because I didn't know Anne from anybody else. She said to me, "Now, you don't want to associate with her and be bothered with her, because she's a," I guess it was the time when she 153:00was going through the sedition, uh, reports (??) and stuff.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So, but I didn't let that stop me from speaking to her or talking to her.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: But I always thought of what she said, and I thought, Well, you know, that has nothing to do with me.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: So, uh, Anne, I, uh, I really didn't know her that well because I didn't work that much with her. As a matter of fact, they, I say they, her organization, put Manny (??) Jones up to run against me two--three times. Um-hm. Her organization. Yeah.

SMITH: What do you think about, um, the Courier Journal? The Louisville Courier Journal?

POWERS: I like the Courier Journal. And the reason I like it is because, um, and when I'm speaking sometime to young people, I say, "It's fine to get a, a, a three or four-second piece of news on TV. But you don't get any details. You 154:00can't get all the details. But when you read a paper, by God (??), you can get all the details. You need to read the paper."

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I said, "If I had not read the paper that morning to see that Bernie Bonn (??) was moving to East End, I never would have been in the Senate." That's how I found out, reading the paper.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: I like the Courier Journal.

SMITH: Just a couple more questions. Uh--

POWERS: Okay.

SMITH: What do African Americans in Kentucky, you think, need to do to, um, I don't know, have some sort of political influence? There was an article in the Herald Leader--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: --uh, Lexington Herald Leader a few weeks ago, about two weeks ago, dis-, discussing how white politics is in the state of Kentucky.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: And, um, you know, here it is 2010.

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: I mean, what can, what can we do to change that? I mean, uh--(Powers 155:00laughs)--I mean, uh, I mean, we need (??) the voter registration drives and getting people out to vote. But, just in terms of mindset of--

POWERS: Mindset.

SMITH: --convincing African Americans to, to try to run. I mean, you know, a lot of cases is that no one even--

POWERS: ----------(??)--

SMITH: --makes the effort.

POWERS: And I don't think it's all about running. I think it's about supporting candidates, too. For instance, in Louisville, the Democratic candidates, we've got a few people who think they are political, uh, consultants or analysts. They never ran for anything; they never won anything. But they run to these candidates--

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: --and tell them all they know, and persuade them to make them, uh, consultants or whatever. And, but, what I see is we're too busy, we're too busy 156:00trying to get some money out of candidates for personal gain. We have that in Louisville. We've got people, uh, we have people who are on the executive committee. Every time there's an election, they getting paid to have a barbecue for a candidate or something ----------(??), or--always ways to make money. It's not about the interest of the condition of African Americans.

SMITH: Um-hm. So you're saying these are African Americans who are getting paid?

POWERS: Yeah. They paying, yeah.

SMITH: So what happens, in other words, I don't know if I'm understanding you correctly, is that rather than, you know, being involved in the political process in a much more primary way, you saw it in a secondary way--

POWERS: Yeah.

SMITH: --in terms of you're hosting something for white candidates--

POWERS: Right.

SMITH: And you're getting paid for it.

POWERS: Yeah, paid for it.

SMITH: Getting paid for it.

POWERS: That's their interest is getting paid by the candidate to have whatever it is they're going to have. Now, I met with the candidate for, uh, mayor week 157:00before last. He brought a young lady with him who formerly worked with George Younce (??), the metro guy who died. And who incidentally was my cousin. And, uh, when he came, she had told him, she had volunteered in his campaign, she had told him that, uh, we were the best of friends. So he says, "Well, I'm meeting with her. Why don't you come and go have lunch with us?" Well, that was a mistake. So, in, uh, the first place, when she called me and told me she was going, I told her three times where the restaurant was located, because I selected it. Close, I don't drive, but I don't go around the East End to eat. There's restaurants right around here. So, anyway, I told her, I said, "Now the place is on Orange Street between Third and Fourth Street." Is that simple? It's 158:00on the south side of the street. There's only one in the whole block. I told her three times. His secretary, she had told his secretary, and, uh, his secretary called me. I told her three times. I said, "Now, the restaurant is on Ormsby Avenue between Third and Fourth Street on the south side of the street." Then he called me, his name was Greg Fischer, he called me the night before, and asked me could I be there a quarter to twelve instead of, uh, twelve o'clock. He wanted to spend more time with me. And I said, "Okay. I'll do my best to be there." Well I got to the restaurant on Ormsby Street between Third and Fourth. I drank two cups of coffee. I said, "Now, where are they?" It got to be ten after twelve. It dawned on me. I said, I bet they down Third and Oak at the Third Street Café. I called down there and I asked for Greg Fischer. He came to 159:00the phone. I said, "What are you doing there?" "Well, that's where they told me to go." And I told him, I said, "I told them Ormsby between Third and Fourth Street. That's where I am, waiting on you. Been here since twenty minutes to twelve." "We'll be right over." So they came over. Well, now she, she didn't come to do anything but eat. Because she pigged out. I was embarrassed. She ate a big salad. And then she ordered, this is an Italian place. Meatballs and spaghetti. You know they gave you a whole plateful. That plate, both plates clean so far. (Smith laughs) Then she ordered a big piece of cake this thick. She eats that and drinks some coffee. She came to pig out. So, he's on this side of me, and I'm trying to talk to him. And I'm talking to him, I'm being very careful what I say to him, because I knew exactly what would happen if I say, said anything significant about anything. She would go back and tell everybody, 160:00"Yes, we had lunch with the Senator, the candidate now. We had lunch with the Senator, and she said this, and--" Unh-uh. So then, that afternoon or that evening, the same day, his secretary called me and wanted to know could he meet with me again. She said, "I don't know what you told that man. But he is so amazed and so happy with whatever you told him, he wants to meet with you again." I said, "Fine. On one condition." She said, "What's that?" "One-on-one."And so when I met with him last Thursday, I told him everything I wanted to tell him.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And what he needs to do. And, uh, he's getting ready to open up an office in the West End.

SMITH: Now Greg Fischer, is he African American?

POWERS: No. No. Tenew (??) ran in the primary, but he lost.

SMITH: He lost. Yeah.

POWERS: Yeah. But Greg Fischer is the Democratic candidate for mayor, and Hal Heiner is the Republican. Well, anyway, I met with him again. And one thing I 161:00did tell him, I said, "You've got a-, all these people around you telling you this and that and the other in the African American -ommunity, community." I said, "The most politically astute African American male in this city is Raoul Cunningham. He knows the issues. He knows what's going on. He puts in ninety hours a week with the NAACP. He knows what's going on. He works hard. He and I just got a hundred and twenty letters out for the Freedom Fund Banquet October third, which I chair for the NAACP. It's a lot of work. And, uh, he's constantly working for the NAACP." I said, "That's who you need to be with. Not these barbecuing people." I didn't say that, but I was thinking it. I, I'll tell you the truth what I was saying--

SMITH: ----------(??)--

POWERS: --no, you know what I called them? I didn't say it to him. I said, "They're political, political prostitutes--

SMITH: Yeah.

POWERS: --and political pimps." That's what I said. ----------(??) You need to find somebody that knows the system, and knows, he can tell you the precincts that we need. We're going to set up, uh, five lines in the NAACP office, try to get the vote out. We can't, we can't, we're not partisan. So we can't tell them who to vote. When we call them, they will know who to vote for, see? Um-hm. Yeah.

SMITH: Hmm.

POWERS: I told him a lie (??).

SMITH: But, what else, is there anything in particular, you know, we can do in the state of Kentucky to change this--

POWERS: Chan--

SMITH: I mean, what about, I mean, should African Americans be interested in what goes on at Fancy Farm? I mean, just to, just to get in the network, or--

POWERS: Well, to know the candidates, that's all. That's what that's about. To know the candidates, to hear the candidates.

SMITH: What do you think about this Tea Party movement?

POWERS: Oh, I, I think it's a, I think it's a, um, a costume front for the Klan 163:00and the, and the, the, what's, what's that org-, Brighton (??), uh, oh, old, old segregated organization, um--

SMITH: White Citizens Council?

POWERS: No, no. It was, uh, uh, hmm, it was a man's name. It starts with a B. But, anyway, it's just a front for the Klan and this organization, or for, for, they coming out of the woodwork. Yeah, I think, that's what I think about the Tea Party.

SMITH: You think Rand Paul has a chance of winning?

POWERS: Yeah, because these people in Kentucky are conservative and stupid and ignorant, too. They, they are. You know, they all, Rand Paul, he's an optometrist. That's where he should have stayed. He might not be a good optometrist. Who knows? You know, 'cause when you take, leaving your profession and run for office, there's something wrong with you, you and your profession, I think. So, uh, I think he has made many mistakes. He's said too much. Talked too 164:00much. And he loves talking, so that's good, because he's always going to say the wrong thing.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: Conway, um, I think Conway, I don't know what his plan is. Uh, I supported him for attorney general. Uh, I don't know what his plan is for his relationship with the black community. I don't know that.

SMITH: What about, um, what, what are your thoughts on Mitch McConnell?

POWERS: Cannot stand him. Mitch McConnell is an opportunist. He always has been. Um, he's very conservative. Uh, he divorced his first wife and his kids. And of course he's married to Chao now. But, uh, I don't think he's the right 165:00person to represent us in the Senate. I disagree with his philosophy--

SMITH: What about Bunning?

POWERS: Oh, I couldn't stand him, either. (laughs) He was in the Senate with me a year in Kentucky. And, uh, he, he was always an obstructionist. He was always a person had no, introduced no legislation of his own, but he was critical of everybody else's. He's a critical person of everybody else. And he went, he took the same attitude to, to the Senate with him. I'm so glad he's out of there. But I don't want, uh, uh, Rand in there, either.

SMITH: Um-hm. Well, you've seen a lot politically-wise. Um--

POWERS: Um-hm.

SMITH: Uh, what are your thoughts on the election of the first African American president?

POWERS: Oh, I'm just amazed. I, I truly am. Um, I think he's a brilliant man. I think he's intelligent, he's smart, he's suave. And I think he's, I think if the 166:00people would give him an opportunity, he would be the greatest president we've ever had. I think he has, one thing about him, he's got good, um, he's got a good, uh, cabinet. He's got good people in his cabinet.

SMITH: Hmm.

POWERS: I think people who are supportive of him, because your cabinet means everything to you.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: People who find out what's going on, bring you the information, you make the decision. Um, now, 2012, if he ran again, well, there's a lot happening between now and 2012. Uh, I'm not sure, if he doesn't win, he's already do-, done a magnificent job. A magnanimous job in the presidency. Unlike anybody else.

SMITH: Um-hm.

POWERS: And, uh, it's just the hatred and the anger of white people that's, uh, causing all the problems there. They're still angry because, uh, these birthers, you know, they're so stupid. The man has produced his birth certificate. What do you want? So, you've seen his birth certificate, you still say you don't believe he's an American? There's something wrong with them. Yeah.

SMITH: Well, thank you. Anything else you want to discuss today?

POWERS: Whatever you want to, I'm okay. Or we can save something for tomorrow.

SMITH: Well, we going to save--

POWERS: What time is it?

SMITH: It's almost, we've almost been three hours. I know you're going to church as well.

POWERS: Yeah. I'm going to leave--

SMITH: So, we're going to stop here--

POWERS: Wait a minute, is that twenty after five?

SMITH: Yes, ma'am.

POWERS: Oh, I'm going to be leaving in fifteen minutes--(Smith laughs)--twenty minutes (??).

SMITH: Thank you.

POWERS: I'm going as I am, so it doesn't matter.

[End of interview.]

[CJ1]Frank Stanley Sr. died in 1974 http://nkaa.uky.edu/record.php?note_id=720 [CJ2]Woodford Porter died in 2006 http://nkaa.uky.edu/record.php?note_id=431 [CJ3]Verna Smith died in 1966 http://nkaa.uky.edu/record.php?note_id=1163 [CJ4]Charlotte McGill died in 1988 http://nkaa.uky.edu/record.php?note_id=1132 [CJ5]Hughes McGill died in 1970 http://nkaa.uky.edu/record.php?note_id=1133