00:00:00 EDGAR CAMPBELL: Come to my name?
CHARLIE HARDY: I saw your, uh, an article on you in the newspaper.
CAMPBELL: Oh?
HARDY: I guess, months ago, right before-
CAMPBELL: Oh yeah, yeah, the election.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: Mhm. Yeah.
HARDY: I guess, you were turned out right when the uh [laughter]
CAMPBELL: Yeah well, uh, you know.
HARDY: The forces came.
CAMPBELL: A number of the um, most of the older sports writers I knew, yeah, The
Inquirer, The Daily News, Record, and Bulletin, and uh, some of them are, that
are around, we retained a fairly good relationship and a lot of times they used
to call me and sometime they'd want to know something about something happened
sometime in the 30's or 20's-
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: And to see if I could recall anything. And so we had, we developed a
very cordial relationship.
HARDY: Hmm.
CAMPBELL: Um, through the years.
00:01:00
HARDY: Right. Right. You say then you were born in Savannah, Georgia?
CAMPBELL: I was born in Savannah, Georgia, November the eleventh, 1902. Uh, I
went to school in Savannah. And then my parents decided they wanted to move
north. And that was in 1917. We moved and settled in Baltimore, Maryland.
Mother, father and myself. Uh, I stayed in school for four or five years in
Baltimore, and then went into Morgan College for a couple of years. Then the
fam- my mother, uh, on her way to Atlantic City one summer, the train stopped
00:02:00at, in West Philadelphia somewhere. And she, looking out the window, and she saw
the homes. And she liked it because they had porches. And um, in Baltimore, they
had stoops, you know.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: And everybody had the white marble steps and kept it very spotless. So
my mother right away fell in love with Philadelphia. She only was there I guess
maybe, hung out about half an hour or more. And then she went on to Atlantic
City. When she came back to Baltimore, she said to my father, you know, how she
liked Philadelphia. That's where she would like to live. Well, that was in 1919,
latter part of 1919. We'd been in Baltimore then three and a half to four years.
So my father says, "Well, we'll see what we could do." So my father was in
00:03:00business in Baltimore, so he, uh, dealing in real estate and banking. He then
uh, contacted some brokers in Philadelphia and bought a house at 19th and Earp
in South Philadelphia, uh, right across from the school, which is 19th and Reid.
HARDY: Okay,
CAMPBELL: So we stayed there, I would say from 1920 to 1922. My mother didn't
particularly like down in South Philadelphia. And my father was in the real
estate business, and right away she felt that he told about some of the places
that he had looked over for to, for selling purposes, and she said, "It sounds
good. I'd like to live out." So we then moved to, to 228 North 57th Street, and
00:04:00my father opened his business there. And I tended business school in
Philadelphia, and I was in real estate business with my father. And we, in 19-,
about -23 -24, I got interested in politics. And at that time, I believe the
mayor that was up was J. Hampton Moore. And I became Republican and became
active and involved in politics. Well, Hampy Moore was elected I think in 1924.
In 1925, I was still participating--
00:05:00
HARDY: Wasn't it Kendrick who was elected in '24?
CAMPBELL: W. Freeland Kendrick.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: Yeah he was.
HARDY: Can't be-
CAMPBELL: Yeah. So in 1926, for whatever reason, I can't recall now, I had a
run-in with the political leader, Republican political leaders, and they had a
three-cornered fight. And they had Gifford Pinchot, George Wharton Pepper, and
William S. Vare warring for United States Senate. So some people that I didn't
know spoke to me and asked me about carrying the banner for George Wharton
Pepper. So anything to be in opposition to Bill Vare and his crowd who I thought
had mistreated me.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And I became actively involved with George Wharton Pepper. Bill Vare
00:06:00won the nomination, but was never seated because of the unscrupulous practices.
That was in 1926. In 1927, they had a local election and I don't remember, it
was either um, Tom Logue's father or it was Hampier--no Tom Logue's father or
Patterson or someone--who ran for mayor in '27. And I didn't get too much
involved with that. But in '28, um, I'm standing in front of the polls, the
early part, and a man drove up in a car and spoke to me and asked me, you know,
was I? And I say I was actively engaged in politics, yeah, with the Republican
Party. And this man happened to be the registration commission Thomas E.
00:07:00McDermitt. And he said, "Well, wouldn't you rather be a committeeman in the
Democratic Party than to be a worker in the Republican?" I said, "Well, I don't
know." I say, "I'm looking at different options at the present time." And in
1928, they finally convinced me and I was out there carrying the banner for
Alfred Smith for president. And then in 1929, the crash came. And my father had
acquired several pieces of property and real estate holdings, and he, there was
a bank. I think it was called the Haddington Bank and Trust Company at 60th and
Market in which he did all his business through them. The market just crashed
and took us all down. We lost practically everything, so uh, then I decided
00:08:00that, I had got a taste of this political arena, and I thought I like it. And I
decided I'd stay with it. And um, 1930, uh, Alexander Hampier's father ran for
governor against, I think it was Gifford Pinchot. I supported the Democrats at
that time. And Pinchot won. And in '32 came the big surprise.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And we supported Roosevelt. And we were
successful. And, and in '33 we had a Democratic fusion ticket in Philadelphia in
which there were a city treasurer who used to run, be elected, a city treasurer,
00:09:00a recorder of deeds, a coroner and uh someone--there were four offices. And two
of them became, they, they initiated a town meeting, fusion ticket. A fellow
named Hadley and S. Wils--, Davis Wilson was the Republicans, and Hearsh was the
coroner and Minick was, uh, one of the other office. So it was a collision [sic]
ticket. And they won in '33. Then in '34 we got the surprise when George H.
Earle ran for governor. We were successful and elected him. And the more and
more I got interested, and the more and more I determined, that, well, I thought
I'd stay with this.
HARDY: Hm.
00:10:00
CAMPBELL: And that's how it happened. But, um, I enjoyed it. There was some
rough times, some very disastrous times for me. And, but then there were some
enjoyable times, you know. And I liked it. Primarily, I think I liked politics
because it was, in my opinion, it was a method of helping those people who are
unable to help themselves.
HARDY: Hm. Now when you came on in politics, you said your interests first
started around 1923?
CAMPBELL: Um-hm.
HARDY: And you came on as a Republican, so how did you get involved with that? I
guess you were working with the Vare on, in that area-
CAMPBELL: Yeah. Republican. I, I-- What happened, my father had a business on
the corner of 57th and Summer Street. And the Republican leaders in there at
that time, they were recruiting every new person in the neighborhood to become
00:11:00actively part and parcel of the organization by voting straight Republican
ticket. And one of the fellow's names was Howard Henry. He was the committeeman
there. And he said to me, said, "You seem to be a wide-awake young man." He
says, "How about being my understudy?" And that's how I got involved in the
Republican Party.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And I only stayed there for four years I guess.
HARDY: Right. Did you know the reputation of the Vare machine?
CAMPBELL: No.
HARDY: Or see the practices that were--
CAMPBELL: No, no. I only knew about the Vare machine once I got in. What really
happened was, I took a test for clerk in what they, what they call Commissioner
of Police now was Director of Public Safety at that time. And the guy was named
[James T.] Cortelyou, who was the director. I took examination for clerk in that
department. I passed. Eh, I was among the first five or six. So I was told that
00:12:00if you want the job, you have to give it to the committeemen, the committeemen
then give it to the ward leader, the ward leader then put the okay on it. I
says, "Okay." So I passed. I gave it to this committeeman, Howard Henry. He
then, the ward leader at that time was um, a magistrate by the name of Evan
Pennock. And he took, he was a drunk, outrageously a drunk, stayed drunk. And I
gave him my card, and he said, "All right, I'll have you taken care of." Well,
every week, the Republican Party, used to meet at 138 City Hall, which was the
office of the county commissioner, George Holmes, the president. And that's
where they decided what was going to happen, what was being done, periodically.
00:13:00And they were supposed to take the card that I'd give to Pennock, and in fact I
gave it to Howard Henry. He in turn gave it to Pennock. Pennock was supposed to
take it down and give it to, uh, get the approval of George Holmes, and I was to
go to work. For whatever reason it is, I don't know, a week went by, two weeks
went by, three weeks went by, four weeks went by. So then I went to find out
about the card, Pennock told me, he didn't know what happened to the card, you
know. "What the hell, take it over," you know. And I got hot, and I said some
things, and they resented the fact that I said some things. And that was the
beginning of me going with George Wharton Pepper,
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: anything to be against the Vare machine-
HARDY: Right. Were there any black clerks? The Director of Public Safety?
CAMPBELL: Nope.
HARDY: So what chance did you figure you had [laughs] in the first place, right?
CAMPBELL: Well, I figured, I guess I was so innocent and naïve or whatever you
00:14:00want to term it, that I felt that I had passed examination, not knowing that I
could pass it and be number one and would never get the job
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: if it was decreed by the powers that be. So I took the examination,
passed, and I felt that was all that was necessary for me, you know. And, um, I
went in, from that point on, I took a dislike for Bill Vare's machine and all
those people that were followers of his.
HARDY: Hm. You know, just reading in the histories, the political histories of
the city, it seems that, uh, you know Vare had the black vote pretty well locked up.
CAMPBELL: Um-hm. Um-hm. Oh yeah.
HARDY: But he didn't divvy out the jobs, to black-
CAMPBELL: No. We got nothing. All the thing you had, you had maybe, to the
best of my knowledge, back in those days, you had about eight or ten blacks
working in what was then called the Recorder of Deeds office. And they had them
in there. And they were recording the deeds as they come in. And it was a
00:15:00handful of them. And, um, they were going on and on and on and on. And it wasn't
until the Democrat was beginning to win from '32 to independence movement in
'33, George Earle in '34, uh, Jack Kelly ran in '35, and he was beaten. And then
we won the Auditor General, out on the State General, Auditor General, and the
State Treasurer in '36. Roosevelt ran again in '36 and again in '40. And when
we began to win those fights, uh, it wasn't until then before the Republican
Party thought that they should be cognizant of the fact that they did have a
tremendous number of black supporters. One of the things that, and also annoyed
me, after I became a Democrat, there was only about two of us to my knowledge in
00:16:00the city and we were right there. And they had a poll tax at that time. You had
to have a poll tax to vote. And it cost 25 cent. We would ask blacks to register
Democrat. And they'd been all so used to the fact that the Republican Party
would say, we'd take care of this, we'd take care of that, we'd take care of the
other. They'd say, "Well," you know, some of them would say, "Well, we'll
register if you will pay our poll tax." So we didn't have no money.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: We were Democrats, didn't have nothing. So what we would have was
coffee k-, they called them coffee klatches now. We used to call them "teas."
You'd have a tea on Sunday. And everybody'd come in, would drop a quarter or
fifty cents in the plate. And we used that money, that if I came up to you and
said, "Would you register Democrat with us?" And you said, "Well, you going to
00:17:00pay my tax?" I'd say, "Yeah." I'd pay the poll tax and you'd register. And
that's how we started building up the Democratic Party. And then we got to the
place where the cops in the district would molest us, and by saying that the
teas we were having, they were calling them house rent parties. We wasn't having
no house rent party, we just raising money for the purpose of paying taxes. And,
um, that went on for quite a while. We had some rough times. They, uh, got so
that the police would, was only two of us, myself and one other person.
HARDY: Who was the other person? Do you remember?
CAMPBELL: Uh, It was a, a West Indian fellow. I don't remember his name. And
then later, after that, shortly after that, a lady became part and parcel of
our--a Mrs. Helen Duckett. She is now some 97 years old. She is living, she's
00:18:00out to senior citizen's home up in, out and around State Road somewhere.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And so they began to harass us, particularly me. I was considered the
spokesman for the re-, new recruiting Democrats. And you'd walk out in the
street and plain-clothes man would grab you. "Didn't I see you this, that and
the other? Uh, where's the numbers? I know you got them." You know. And just
molest you like that all the time. Then they would--
HARDY: So they'd try to set you up with a policy rap or a numbers rap?
CAMPBELL: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um-hm. Then they would tell you that, uh,
they would say, "Now if you want to be in peace, see Mr. So-and-so." See this
00:19:00one or see that one, you know. And you'd know then it was all only harassment.
Well, you figured, "What the heck," if this is what you were going to do, you
were going to do it. And, eh, I myself sort of resented the fact that I was
being told what I could do and what I could not do. And so we eventually
started, we started building an organization. Finally we were able to get enough
blacks until we had a number of committeemen. And we had the only black
Democratic organization in the city of Philadelphia.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And that was in West Philadelphia. It was then, we were living in what
was known as part of the 34th Ward. And, um, we built on the strength of that.
And there were a number of incidents. And it was only, uh, in those years
around, after '35 that the Republican Party start even recognizing the fact that
00:20:00they had blacks.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: And we had, let's see, there was, there was Amos Scott who was a big
Republican. He was a magistrate. There was John C. Asbury. He was another big
Republican. He was a lawyer. There was Ed Henry, another big Republican. He was
a magistrate. And then when we came along and was winning, and first the person
they tried to dump was Ed Henry. And we, as Democrats, picked him up. We won
that election. Ed Henry won by a majority of 258,000, and we were on our way
then because we were then gathering momentum as we went along. We then elected
00:21:00Sam Holmes to the legislature, Marshall Shepard to the legislature, um, Crystal
Bird Fauset to the legislature, um, Ray Merritt to the legislature, uh, Walter
Jackson to the legislature, Hopson Reynolds to the legislature--
HARDY: Hm, are any of these people still around? Because Hopson, I think I heard
Hopson Reynolds--
CAMPBELL: Hop is, Hop is very sick. He's down, he went in South Carolina.
Marshall is dead. Crystal Bird is dead. Uh, Jackson is dead. Holmes is dead. Um,
the other one, Joe Rainey, who was boxing commissioner and also magistrate, I
think Joe's still alive somewhere.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And I was just reminiscing last night over where we had-- there were,
00:22:00now the first Republicans that I recall were, um, [James H.] Irvin, who was
elected to city council by the Republican Party and the other fellow that,
Armstrong, they were the two Republicans, members of city council.
HARDY: What sort, what sort of men were these that--Men who worked for the
Republican Party?
CAMPBELL: Well, Irvin was a very highly respectable undertaker. Woody Armstrong
was the rank-and-file Republican. And uh, they were councilmen from the same
district. Eh, but--
HARDY: Seventh Ward, I guess?
CAMPBELL: No, 44th Ward. West Philadelphia.
00:23:00
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: In the Seventh Ward, you had J. Austin Norris, who was the leader down
there, very brilliant lawyer and editor, newspaper man. And, uh, he was at
seventh ward. You had Ed Henry was from the 30th Ward. But seemed like all the
power was in West Philadelphia, where we were.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: Now you had, just like you had Walter Jackson, Sam Holmes, Herb
Minton, Crystal Bird Fauset, Joe Rainey, Fletcher Amos, Amos Scott, Ed Henry,
John Asbury and those people were, uh, elected to the legislature-- on the,
well, I would say 99 percent of them on the Democratic ticket. Only after we
began to win so many things, the Republican Party then recognized some of the
00:24:00blacks that they had.
HARDY: Right. Why is that? Now, I talked to a Joseph O'Minsky a while ago.
CAMPBELL: Joe O'Minsky. Yeah.
HARDY: Yeah. And he had the same experience in, with the poll tax too. I guess
he was in the 44th?
CAMPBELL: Yeah. He was 24th. Joe was a leader in the 24th Ward.
HARDY: 24th Ward. Yeah. And he was telling me, I guess, how it was in the early
'30s--that he would then, that they got up the money somehow.
CAMPBELL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
HARDY: And would register people.
CAMPBELL: That's the only way we did. That's the only way we could get them.
HARDY: And the way the City got at him, or they went after his father and the
merchants in the area--And they'd send the weights and measures inspectors or
the police to close it down on Sundays or--
CAMPBELL: Mhm. Yeah. Uh-huh. They did that. Whatever, if you were in business,
they went after you. If you weren't in business, the police would molest you.
They'd stop you at any time, you know, and question you. And they'd always say,
"Well, I know you look like the person they, uh, we, information we got on. You
must be that person." Molesting like that. That's what they did. They did. That
was their practice.
HARDY: Could you do anything to, to try and stop it--
CAMPBELL: No, no.
HARDY: Or you just take it?
CAMPBELL: Well, yeah, you could do something if you want, if you want it to
00:25:00stop. If you would agree--see, in each area they had during those days, they had
a, a magistrate. And the magistrate that would sit in the district would be the
same district that he'd live in.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: Now, if you were doing some things or making some inroads, they would
immediately say to you, "Well, you go over and see Mr. So-and-so. And you make
it all right with him, and we won't bother you." But if you didn't do that,
they'd molest you every time you hit the street.
HARDY: Did you ever try and go talk to your magistrate?
CAMPBELL: No. Because I knew, I didn't like him in the first place, and I
figured that he was the one that threw my job over here, you know, by throwing
the card away. And I figured, what the heck, why should I, you know, I go and
talk to a guy that I know is no damned good, you know. And that's what happened.
00:26:00
HARDY: Right. Let me ask you another question about, um, the vote. How did they
get the black vote out? The old Vare machine, back in the, when you first came
to the city, in the '20s.
CAMPBELL: Well, in a lot of instances, there were areas where they had ah, they
supplied the, uh, committeemen in the district whatever he thought he needed to
get the vote out. If some of them needed for whiskey, then they used whiskey.
Some of them used it for house parties, you know, just before the election, and,
uh, some of them got to the place where you had five, six, seven votes in your
family. As head of the family, "Here's a note, see that all of them come out."
And they used whatever, method, whichever method was the best for that
particular individual, and they used it. And during the many days, there were
00:27:00areas where you, in most instances, you could never prove it, but you knew
it--The ballot box, the ballot box that was in the polls--and many times--that's
not the ballot box that went downtown. Most of them, in areas, there were ballot
boxes, there was always an extra ballot box on the premises. And I couldn't
swear to what they did, but when you look, read about the returns, you say,
"Well, that, it can't be. It can't be what happened where I was working. I was
working the sixth district here, and this happened? Oh, no, no, no." But the
ballots were there.
HARDY: So you feel that you had any elections pulled out from under you by
switches in the ballot box?
00:28:00
CAMPBELL: Oh! Definitely. Whoever they wanted. Whoever they wanted. There were
occasions where there were rumors, whether they were true or false is pretty
hard to see it, because they're not going to let you see it. If you were part of
the organization, maybe you could.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: But, you know, being on the other side, no. There were rumors that
after the polls closed, the ballot box was up in--and the polls would
automatically go to the cellar, and the one that was in the cellar would come
up, and that would be the one that they'd turn in. And that was one of the
reasons why they could predict so far ahead, you know, how much their man would
win by. Once in a while, they-- things went bad for, you know, but most of the
time it didn't.
HARDY: So when you were, um, getting the Democratic Party started up in West
Philadelphia and you knew that these elections were being pulled out from under
00:29:00you by these sorts of switches, um, did you all ever do any investigations, try
and really to catch someone or try and get some attention to it or--
CAMPBELL: First of all, the mayor of the City was Republican. The district
attorney was Republican. Most of the judges were Republican. Uh, the Director of
Public Safety who handled the police and detectives was Republican. Now who
would you appeal to?
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: Oh, there was a Philadelphia Record paper, Dave Stern had a Record
paper, and it, we could go to Dave and give our report and he would publicize a
lot of these things, you know, and report them. That was the only outlet we had.
Then there was a black newspaper, Pittsburgh Courier, which Aus Norris headed,
and there was also The Philadelphia Tribune. There was The Afro-American, which
was at Broad and South. There was three black papers. And you know, the Courier
00:30:00was the most, uh, aggressive of all of them. And then there was The Independent paper.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: There, they were more aggressive. And you know, you could tell your
story to them and they'd print it. But you know, when you just got one paper
printing what day's happened, and the other paper's just disregarding it as not
news, you know, so. Yeah, we hollered, we whooped, we said, we accused them of
this, that and the other. So what? Who's going to do something about it?
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: Nobody did nothing about it, because we did not have, we did not have
the--The only time I would say that, that they [?] fair was due in 1934 after
George H. Earle became the governor. And the attorney general and some of the
law enforcement officers there, we could appeal to them. And the only reason I
think that we could appeal to them was because George Earle had aspirations to
00:31:00become vice president of the United States.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: But for sure, we hollered, whooped and hollered and claimed and
everything else, and they claimed that Hoppy got published, he got no, he didn't
have nobody to publicize it. The only paper you had out there was The
Philadelphia Record.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: Dave Stern. All right. Dave did the, wonderful job with what he had to
do it with. A paper up against all the other papers.
HARDY: Yeah, yeah. Another question about politics. I know down in, uh, South
Philadelphia in particular, in the white immigrant wards, the way they
established the, uh, the close relationship or the loyalty to the party was
through the influence with the magistrates, you know, giving a ton of coal to jobs.
CAMPBELL: See-
HARDY: Did they do the same sort of stuff in the black neighborhoods, or were
they pretty much left out of it basically?
CAMPBELL: They did some of it. Not a great degree. You see, and to a great
00:32:00degree, in my opinion, I felt that they felt that they, what blacks they had was
going to stay with them, so they didn't have to do nothing for them. What little
bit, they did little something. But you take, like the 4th Ward, the 5th Ward,
the 7th Ward, and down there, 39th Ward, the 26th Ward and all around there, uh,
you know, they'd see that, if a family got coal, and they used to have these big
trucks, trains, trucks that stand out on the, down on Washington Avenue and I
can't prove this, but there were people that were permitted to go and get bags
and bags of coal, you know. And the cops would be looking the other way-
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: You know. Things of that sort. But ah, you see the great
majority--and the fact is that the leaders of the Republican Party was in South Philadelphia.
00:33:00
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: It was Eddie Cox. He was the president of the Atlantic Refinery, but
he was the big political leader. There was, uh, Bill Vare and his brother, uh--
HARDY: Edwin was one of them.
CAMPBELL: Ed. Yeah, there were three brothers. They all lived in South
Philadelphia. There was the--all the magistrates was from South Philadelphia.
All the big top officials, all lived in South Philadelphia.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: See? And out there where Joe O'Minsky was, there was a guy who was
Clerk of the Courts, this job right here, uh, he was only one of them. Clark,
his name was Clark. And he was one of the few that was on the inner, inner circle.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: You know. But most of them was from South Philadelphia.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: Yeah, and they never bothered. There's not much difference then than
00:34:00it is now in the Republican Party dealing with blacks. I mean, they're a little
more liberal today than they were, but not to any great degree if they wanted to
win the battle.
HARDY: Yeah. That's for sure.
CAMPBELL: You know, because I would say this, I think if I was head of the
Republican Party, and I realized that the blacks had become a factor, I would
fin-, I'd line myself up with some blacks that are sincerely interested in progress-
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: And let them go out. I may not be able to get the majority, but I
would split that black vote-
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: They had. Because there have been many golden opportunities the
Republicans had to move in because the Democrats were beginning to act like they
were acting. And we resented it.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: You understand?
HARDY: Sure.
CAMPBELL: But, the question was that the Republicans missed the boat because I
00:35:00think that there were occasions where they could have made inroads into the
Democratic ranks because a lot of Democrats were being mistreated.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: For, for an instance in 1963, I had a fight within the Democratic
Party. By law, I was supposed to become the leader of the 34th Ward. I was
vice-chairman, and the rules say when the chairman resigns, dies, or has
inability to serve, the vice-chairman automatically becomes the leader until
such time that an election can be held.
HARDY: You memorized that phrase.
CAMPBELL: Oh yeah. [laughter] They, um, they took my job. They flanked anybody
00:36:00that was seeing friendly with me was penalized. And that's how I happened to be,
run for public office.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: They refused to give me a job. They wanted me to go over and
apologize to a man for something that he did to me, not what I did to him, he
did to me. And because I caused a hooray in the city, because I was able to roll
together a group of people who threatened to do harm to the party, I was to
publicly apologize to him.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And I told them, as far as I'm saying, they could go to hell. And, um,
I didn't use exactly that, I used worse words than that, you know. [laughter]
But, uh, when we went through a picket line around City Committee and I stayed
00:37:00out there at 1960--from '63 to '65. They wouldn't give me a job, wouldn't put
me back on my job, and anyone was caught associating with me was threatened of
their job.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And in '65, Milton Shapp decided that he wanted to run for governor. I
was, a friend of mine, then councilman Schwartz--um, uh, not George Schwartz,
uh, Henry--Henry Sawyer, Henry Sawyer said to me one day, he said, "Ed, Milt
Shapp is getting ready to run for governor. He's trying to put a team together.
Why don't you go over and see him?" I said, "Okay, I will." Well, I'd been out
of work two years then.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: So I went over. Saw Milt, saw Dick Doran. He was working for Milt at
that time. And Milt said, "I need a man that will coordinate the activity in the
00:38:00black community for me." He said, "I'm going to, I couldn't pay you very much. I
could pay you a hundred and fifty a week." Hell, I hadn't made five cents since
two years, you know. [laughter] And I, and he offered me 150 a week, shucks.
[Laughter]. Yeah, he was my man. So I took the job. And we organized and we
worked. We come near winning it too. We lost it, but we come near winning. And I
stayed. Milt kept me on payroll for one year. And that was a godsend.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And in '66, I was out of work again. So I said, talking to my
daughter, I said, "You know, I'm not going to get nothing from the Democratic
Party. I think I'll run for office." My daughter said, "Yeah, Dad, go ahead and
00:39:00do it. I'll help you." I said, "Okay." So I took papers out and filed for
councilman-at-large. Jim Tate I had met in the course of years. So I went to
Jim, asked him, he was running for mayor, they were trying to dump him. I asked
him to support me. Said, "Ed, I can't support you because I've already committed
myself to somebody else." I said, "Yeah." He said, "But," he said, "I'll give
you whatever help I can." I said, "Okay." I said, "Every little bit helps." So I
got out there. And he said, "Tell you what I'll do. I'll endorse you in a
certain area, because I've already committed myself to endorse somebody
city-wide." I said, "Okay."
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: So I got out there and over a period of years, I'd made some good
friends, both Republicans and Democrats. And I went to all of them. I said, "Man
I'm in this thing, fight to the finish." I said, "I need help." They'd say, "All
right." I'd say, "I ain't got no money." They'd say, "You don't need no money.
You all right with us." I had Republicans and Democrats all over the city
00:40:00helping me. And out of 67 people running for the office, I was one, I was the
third person, I ran third high. And that's how I happened to be, run for public
office. Because they, they had for-, they had forbidden me to run for public
office. I was not supposed to run until they tell me-
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: Because they had said who was going to get this and who was going to
get that and who was going to get--
HARDY: The same old stuff.
CAMPBELL: Yeah. And that, and that's how I happened to be running. I ran and I
won. I won, ran a second time, and I won. And the third time I ran, I was
opposed to Frank Rizzo, and he and his people got together and they knocked me down.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: But in the meantime, the person that had won this office died. And the
only person that I knew of that both Pete Camiel and the Democratic
organization, Frank Rizzo and Marty Weinberg and the independent set up could
00:41:00agree on would be me. [laughter] So I couldn't understand. I said, "Well, look,
you want me to have it, I'll, I'll take it, you know." And that's how I happened
to get into this. That was in 1976. And I've been here ever since.
HARDY: Terrific.
CAMPBELL: Yeah. I've enjoyed it.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: In fact, I enjoy, I enjoy being able to, you know, if you've never
done it, you can't appreciate it.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: But if you've done it, that some old lady who, in destitute
circumstances, or some man in destitute circumstances, or some youngster in
destitute circumstances, who has no money, no, and don't know where to turn, and
they come to you, and they say, um, "I'm in trouble." Or, "I need this, I need
that, I need the other." And you jump in and help them, I don't know what
happens to anybody else, but the greatest feeling that I've ever had is to see
00:42:00an old lady, old man, or young boy say, "Thanks."
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: There's no amount of money that I know of could compensate. And I
guess that's why I'm in it. That's why I like it. [laughter] So many people say,
"Well, you're 80 years old. Why don't you retire?" I say, "What am I going to do?"
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: I say, do . I say, "When the people get tired of me, they'll kick me
out." I say, "So why--"
HARDY: No question about it.
CAMPBELL: I say, "Why, why should I, why, what am I going to do with myself?" I
say, I think, in my experience, there's some people I can help. I get calls from
all over the city. Not from districts that I represent. All over the city. And
if I can help them, I help them.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: You see, and one thing I never do, I've never done this. I've never
00:43:00said to a person, "Yes, I'll do it." I've always said, "I'll try. I hope to be
successful. I've been successful in the past, but I can't anticipate what the
future will be."
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: And I let them know. And as far as I'm concerned, I just think that
is an elected official's function, to serve people.
HARDY: That's the way it's supposed to be. I don't think it always works out
that way. But--
CAMPBELL: No. I don't. I don't. I'm sitting--
[INTERRUPTION: RECORDING STOPS]
CAMPBELL: Two-thirty North 59th Street.
HARDY: I, in 1979, I guess, I worked on an oral history project in Haddington.
CAMPBELL: Yeah.
HARDY: Um, did an interview with a number of people. That's when I met Mr.
[Arthur] Dingle.
CAMPBELL: I go over there occasionally. I used to be over there more often but
even since Regina Black was there, and prior to her coming there, uh, Marie
Shumate was the original founder.
00:44:00
HARDY: I did an inter- Yeah I've done two interviews with, she-
CAMPBELL: And Marie and I worked very close together over there.
HARDY: Yeah, you know what I'd like to ask you about um, is back going all the
way back. You say your father was in real estate.
CAMPBELL: Um-hm.
HARDY: When you all decided to move from Baltimore to Philadelphia, did he
already have a job lined up here?
CAMPBELL: No, he, see, he, we had a business. He had, uh, well, I guess you
would call it uh ice cream and delicatessen store in Baltimore. And um, at that
time, he was connected with a bank in Baltimore. And when we came here, he had
made some contact with some of the real estate brokers. And they told him it was
a good field here, you know, and he got involved, and that's what he did.
00:45:00
HARDY: Huh, so did he had already talked to people before--
CAMPBELL: Yeah, he did.
HARDY: You all didn't just come up like many migrants and just, here we are, you
know, now we got to get a job.
CAMPBELL: Well, we came up--I don't know if we knew where we were going.
HARDY: Huh.
CAMPBELL: Because he bought a house over the telephone.
HARDY: Huh.
CAMPBELL: You see, and that was the house at 19th and Earp. He bought a house
over the telephone. And that's why we didn't stay there long, because my mother
didn't like it, [laughter] see. She had wanted to come here because she wanted
a, a porch front.
HARDY: And that was it?
CAMPBELL: That was it.
HARDY: There's no better reason to come to Philadelphia?
CAMPBELL: Nah, no, no, you see, in Baltimore, they had them, there was a white
marble steps, and that's all, you know.
HARDY: That's sort of a capricious reason to move, wasn't it?
CAMPBELL: She was flying, she was going to Atlantic City and she looked out the
window and saw the houses and liked them, said that's what she liked. That's
where she wanted to be.
HARDY: When you all first moved to Philadelphia.
CAMPBELL: Mhm.
HARDY: How did it differ from Baltimore or Savannah?
00:46:00
CAMPBELL: Well, the difference was this. That I think the people in Philadelphia
were a little more stand-offish than the people in Baltimore were. And
naturally, the people in Savannah, they was all home folks.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: And, uh, it was sort of like it, to my best of my recollection, that
you had to prove yourself in Philadelphia. It was, it was like a class thing.
Certain groups over here, certain group over here. Even today, I think it pops
up every once in a while. Old Philadelphians.
HARDY: Not just once in a while. [laughs]
CAMPBELL: Yeah, once in a while. But it, but it was very strong when we moved
here. You, you, you, you, you, if you were not from Philadelphia, you were from
the country, as far as they were concerned.
HARDY: This is within the black community?
CAMPBELL: Yeah. Um-hm. Yeah. That's the way it was. But uh-
00:47:00
HARDY: Now I know, having read some of the books, it seemed that there was a
real cleavage between the old, fairer Philadelphia-
CAMPBELL: Mhm.
HARDY: Yeah, aristocracy, as they called themselves and the, I guess they called
them the New Negro …
CAMPBELL: Yeah, that's right.
HARDY: Men like Washington Rhodes and--
CAMPBELL: No, no, no, no, no. Yeah.
HARDY: Raymond Alexander.
CAMPBELL: You see, Raymond [Pace Alexander], John Francis Williams, Gene [Eugene
Washington] Rhodes and those fellows came here from other places. Most of them
went to school in Lincoln and most of them settled in Philadelphia.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: And they were from other parts of the South. Virginia, South Carolina,
North Carolina, Georgia, Florida. All like that. And they said, but the people
that they had to deal with were all Philadelphian. Now, a lot of them were
cooks, maids, uh, men that took care of the horses, drug the carriages, but they
00:48:00did that for Mr. Charlie, you understand? So that made them look better than me.
I don't care whether I had a business or money or whatnot, you see, I was not an
old Philadelphian. And that's the way it happened was the habit.
HARDY: Huh.
CAMPBELL: That's the way it happened. But I got along fairly well.
HARDY: How about um, in terms of the interracial relations? What was the social
environment, like overall in Philadelphia, compared to, let's say, Savannah?
CAMPBELL: Well, in Savannah, you stayed where you belonged. Uh, there was a few
liberal whites down there to, once in a while, their presence was felt, but most
of the time in Savannah, they felt that you belonged over here, and that's where
they wanted you to stay, and they belonged over there. And you didn't have a
00:49:00whole lot of clashes, but you know where you belonged.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: Where they would want you to be. Except on occasion, there were
occasions where there was outbursts and there were some of the liberal whites
who would come to your defense and support with you in that. When you get to
Baltimore, Baltimore in my opinion was a big southern town.
HARDY: Right. A big southern town. And they discriminated but they did it
diplomatically, like, put it that word. Uh, they did it diplomatically. Had the
same effect that it had in Savannah, but it was, it wasn't so abrupt. In other
words, down in Savannah-
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: The white man said to you, "Look, this is where you belong. You stay
there and we won't have no trouble." You know that. In Baltimore, they would let
00:50:00you feel that you're welcome, part and parcel and everything like that, but that
undercurrent was there.
HARDY: How about in Philadelphia?
CAMPBELL: In Philadelphia, it's much better today than it was when I came here.
Because I remember, Horn & Hardart had a restaurant at 1508 Market Street. And
we used to come downtown to go to dances. And we used to go in there to get a
sandwich, a cup of coffee. And we got a cup of coffee. They'd break up the cup.
We made them one night break up every cup they had in the place because we drank
that many cups of coffee. Coffee was only five cents. And it, every time a black
man would sit down and drink coffee--see, that, that , that it was 1937 when Hob
Reynolds and them had passed the Equal Rights Bill in Harrisburg. And they had
to serve you, but they didn't have to be friendly. And they would handle your
00:51:00service any kind of way. And Horn & Hardart was big business. Child's, you
wasn't hardly allowed in there.
HARDY: Okay, so when you're talking about breaking the cups in Horn & Hardart,
that was after '37, the Civil Rights bill had passed?
CAMPBELL: Yeah. Um-hm. We went in and we ordered coffee, or something. The guy
would give us coffee. And we didn't pay no attention to it at first, but then
when a man quit, got, when I got through, instead of him taking the cup and
putting it away, he'd take the cup and break the cup. And we realized what they
were doing. So then we just sit there, better part of the night, and drank
coffee, [laughter] and made them break up all the cups. They called the cops,
cops threatened to put us out, and we cited to the cops about equal rights bill,
and they didn't want to hear that. They said, what you want to create a problem,
you know? And we figured, well, what the hell, they going to lock us up, so why
antagonize him. So what we just did, we would come into town three nights a
week, and three nights a week, we'd go in Horn & Hardarts.
HARDY: Did you do this with Dr. Strickland?
CAMPBELL: Wilbur Strickland?
00:52:00
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: Wilbur knew, yeah. Wilbur.
HARDY: Because I heard he'd been involved in something like that.
CAMPBELL: Yeah, um-hm. Wilbur would have. Yeah.
HARDY: Raymond Alexander?
CAMPBELL: Raymond, Raymond, Raymond--in fact, Raymond and John Francis Williams
was the ones, you know, they used to have a theater, the Stanley Warner Theater
at 16th and Market. And even though you and I would pay the same price, I
couldn't sit with you.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: I had to go upstairs. But you could sit on the first floor. And for
the longest time, what we did, we would go upstairs, buy a ticket, go upstairs,
and see the whole show, then come downstairs and sit on the first floor, because
we know they going to put us up, and say, "Come on to the window, we'll give you
your money back." And they'd give us our money back.
HARDY: [laughs] That's fantastic.
CAMPBELL: But , uh, then Raymond and John Francis Williams introduced a bill
and went to court, and that helped square that away.
HARDY: Hm. How about when you first came to Philadelphia? What, 1919 was it?
00:53:00
CAMPBELL: Nineteen-twenty.
HARDY: Nineteen-twenty. What I read, was it really strict Jim Crow in the city then?
CAMPBELL: Oh, definitely. Yes. Mhm.
HARDY: Can you give me some examples of how it worked?
CAMPBELL: Well, [clears throat] first of all, there was a dance studio at
15th--it is called Al White. It was 15th and Rittenhouse. Not Rittenhouse. That
little street there as you, as you get, uh just before you get to Chestnut. I
can't think of it now, but it runs right straight into Wannamaker's. You know,
runs from--
HARDY: Oh, Juniper.
CAMPBELL: No. From 15th--
HARDY: It wasn't Juniper. Oh, from 15th.
CAMPBELL: From 15th, right straight. You know where they come in to come round
City Hall, you swing round.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: Yeah, yeah, well, anyhow, uh dance hall, we used to go there. When we
come out of there, we had to either be prepared for one or two things. Be
00:54:00prepared to run to the El or fight. They had a Chinese wall there. And you'd
have to go to 15th and Market to catch the El to go down the subway. And the
whites would attack us every time.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: And got so a place, there were occasions the policemen would, supposed
to be trying to break it up, but he would hold me, while you punched me, you
know. And that went on for quite a while until, you know, people like [Raymond
Pace] Alexander, John Francis Williams, Austin Norris, they interceded and they
sort of broke it up out there.
HARDY: Were these kids' gangs or were these adults?
CAMPBELL: No, they were youngsters like I was.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: Young men. But there were adults around that didn't do nothing about
00:55:00stopping them. And then that wasn't the worst of it. We who lived in West
Philadelphia had to get off the El at 56th and Market. Then we had to,
everything lived around 56th and Market, was Irish. And we had to fight our way
down them steps off, into, into our own neighborhood. But once we got north of
Arch Street, that's our territory.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: But we'd have to, you know, most cases we'd have to fight from Market
to Arch. Oh, you better come off the El steps running. Then we used to go over
to 48th and um Girard around La-, ah, not Lady of Victory, I don't know the name
of the Catholic Church over there. Hallihan, O'Hallihan Club there. Any black
being caught over there, they'd chase you. And sometime they'd get so carried
00:56:00away chasing us, that they'd come to 52nd Street, and that's our territory, that
we'd chase them back. [laughter] Oh, yeah. Yeah. But, uh, things have improved greatly.
HARDY: Hm, give me some other examples of how you know the segregation worked in
the city when you first came.
CAMPBELL: Well, when we first came, uh, even I recall there were occasions where
you got on the trolley, and um, you'd be sitting down, and if the car there was
crowded, it was not too often, but often enough. It was always resentment. "Why
should the nigger sit down?" you know, and we're standing up. And remarks would
be made, and I think basically, most of the remarks were made, was hoping that I
00:57:00would or whoever it might be would respond and would cause an entanglement, you
know what I'm saying?
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: There was things of that sort. And movies, a lot of them resented very
much you coming in the movies. And when they started going to movies, sitting on
the first floor, they resented that. And as I said before, you weren't allowed
in Childs, Childs Restaurant. Supposed to be, was a number one dump in my book.
HARDY: Hmph.
CAMPBELL: But was supposed to be fine, one of the fine chains in the city. And
that's why Horn & Hardart did so well.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: See, because the majority was going to Horn & Hardart. But, uh, and
they used to be, used to be times around where you wanted to buy a suit or to
buy a hat or a pair of shoes. You could buy it, but they wouldn't let you try it on.
00:58:00
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: Yeah. Those were some of the things that happened.
HARDY: I guess you had to know your size and have good eyes. [laughs]
CAMPBELL: Oh yeah. In other words, you tell the guy what size you wanted, and
what kind of shoes, and you saw it in the window, that what you want? You know,
it was a question. Now all of them wasn't like that, but there was a lot of the
stores--and I think that in most instances it was-was-was restricted to certain
managers. That, you the manager of this store, you establish your policy, and
that was your policy. And I found out later, by talking to them, that they were,
the reason they did that was because they had customers who came in and who
resented that they would be trying on something that a nigger had tried on.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: See? That's why it happened. And it was only, well I would say, let's
see, this is 1980? As late as 15, 17 years ago. A lot of these exclusive shops,
00:59:00like at 4th and Walnut, 40th and Chestnut, uh, 17th and uh Chestnut and Walnut.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: They wouldn't let women try on some clothes that they wanted to
purchase, you know, put it up beside you.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: And look at it like that. That as far back as I would say, around '62-
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: To '65, something like that.
HARDY: The Civil Rights movement really took off I guess.
CAMPBELL: Yeah. Um-hm. Yeah.
HARDY: Now when you uh, when you all arrived in the city in 1920, that was a
period of mass migration.
CAMPBELL: Yeah.
HARDY: Uh, do you remember what most of the people were like who were coming up,
like yourselves. You all were fairly, I mean, your father had enough money to
buy a house--
CAMPBELL: Yeah, yeah. Um-hm, Um-hm.
HARDY: Had his own business. So you were fairly well off.
01:00:00
CAMPBELL: Well, the majority of the people were not. There were a lot of people
coming--you see, a lot of people immigrated to the North because you as a friend
of someone, and you wrote them and told them, maybe you weren't doing well, but
you wrote and told them how well you were doing [laughter] and the opportunities
up here and brag. So a lot of them came up figuring that they was going to walk
in streets filled with gold and everything, opportunities waiting, see? And a
lot of people was misled. And, because the friends that were here didn't want to
let them know how bad they were doing, you know, and they painted a beautiful
picture. A lot of people, you know, got together and said, "Well, hell, if he's
doing that well up there," you know, "why you me--, why should I stay here?" And
that's what happened. Yeah.
HARDY: What were they like?
CAMPBELL: Well, it was a mixture. There were, most of them were frightened
people, you know. You were going a thousand miles away from home, you didn't
01:01:00know nobody there, and you were trying to take up residence. You had no job to
go to. And you want to go in there on the strength of what somebody--I think it
happened more in Philadelphia, New York and Chicago than anyplace.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: Everybody who came there wrote back and told them how swell they were doing-
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: You know. Very few people got the true picture that things were really rough.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: You may have a little more opportunity to get something here, but it
was just as bad here as it was down there. Only thing you didn't have that very
strict and rigid discrimination up here, but, uh, that's, that's what it was.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: And the people then, unfortunately as you might know, there was a
certain segment of the blacks that immigrated here who were very limited. Em, it
01:02:00was hard for them to understand a new world they were living in. And the people
that were here felt they didn't have to take the time to try to understand you.
They had to try and look out for themselves.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: And it posed a problem.
HARDY: Yeah. I guess Du Bois talked about that. That lower tenth, I guess he
said, who--
CAMPBELL: Yeah. Um-hm. And, and, and, and one thing that some people don't like
to hear, but it's true, when I came here, there were class discrimination. What
I mean by that is that blacks within your own group who felt that they were that
much better than you. I don't care where you came from, what you brought,.
01:03:00
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: But you're not from Philadelphia, so I'm that much better than you are.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: And that's where they got the title of O.P., Old Philadelphians. And
most of them lived in Naudain Street, uh 7th Street, South Street, Bainbridge
Street. And most of them, they were either houseboys, uh maids, chauffeurs, uh
take care of the carriages and the horses, that was the top jobs they had.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: But they were here.
HARDY: They were here.
CAMPBELL: And this was their home.
HARDY: What were they like as people? You know, how would you de--
CAMPBELL: Snobs. The great majority of them.
HARDY: Were they educated at all?
CAMPBELL: Yeah, fairly educated. Most of them were.
HARDY: Educated's the worst type, right? [laughs]
CAMPBELL: Most of them were, yeah, you know. And they just didn't feel, first of
all, they didn't think if you were not from, an original Philadelphian, well,
01:04:00who were you? You were nobody! Now why'd you come here, you know?
HARDY: But I guess it also, with all the people coming up from the South, it
made it rougher on them.
CAMPBELL: Oh, it made it rough. It made it rough. And 'cause, I must admit,
there were a lot of people come up from the South that was loud and boisterous.
And that still affects people today-
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: You know. It, like you walk into a movie, or you walk into a club, or
you walk into a restaurant. And somebody sitting at the fourth or fifth table,
and you can hear every damned thing they say down there, you know, and, uh, it's
rather embarrassing. I can understand that. But you must take into consideration
that maybe these people have not been exposed to the culture that you have, so
bear with them a little while.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: They may turn out to be all right. But people today, they haven't got
time to worry about you, me or our problems. That's our problem. Solve it.
01:05:00
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: You know.
HARDY: You know, they, that, that's something that really is interesting, that
there must have been really some unbridgeable cultural differences, particularly
from some of the uh, really poverty-stricken blacks straight off the farm--
CAMPBELL: Yeah.
HARDY: Outside, you know, in Georgia or something--
CAMPBELL: Absolutely.
HARDY: Coming up to an urban environment.
CAMPBELL: Absolutely.
HARDY: But all the rules are different.
CAMPBELL: Yeah.
HARDY: All the ways people relate to each other are different.
CAMPBELL: Mhm.
CH; Can you tell me a little more about what they did that offended people, or
how they acted that set them apart?
CAMPBELL: Well, the differences I saw was this: there were, for instance, take a
Jewish person come to town. The Jewish people invariably surround him, coax him,
talk to him, teach him, instruct him, and advise him. Take an Irishman comes
here. The Irish pack get them together, maybe it's over a keg of beer or some
01:06:00bourbon, but they get them together and help them. But the blacks came here, and
they were mostly in need of help more than anybody else, but the people that
they came to were not ready and willing to accept them and help them.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: Uh, some of them would go so far as to say, "He might be my color, but
he's not my kind."
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: You understand?
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: So, that made it very difficult through the years. So there were so
many, and it goes back to what I said to you before: class discrimination.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: Eh, you know there used to be an Old Philadelphian where if you were
light complected, you sit in a certain area. If you were brown, you sit in a
01:07:00certain area-
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: Church functions, social functions, what not. And if you were black,
you sit in a certain area. And, and that, and that discrimination built up as
time went on.
HARDY: It built up over time.
CAMPBELL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HARDY: When did that start to change?
CAMPBELL: Well I would sa-, I feel, not keeping exact track of it--I would say
during the Equal Rights Movement, a lot of people realized while we're fighting,
talking about the Equal Rights Movement against whites, let's look at our own self.
HARDY: Huh.
CAMPBELL: Let's clean our own house up.
HARDY: But it was that long. Because I mean, just from my very sketchy
knowledge, it would seem that when the New Negro, you know, was making his
presence felt in the '20s, that here the dynamic people or the darker--
CAMPBELL: But they were not acceptable--
HARDY: Men and women who were coming up--
CAMPBELL: No.
HARDY: Getting in business--
CAMPBELL: They were making their presence felt in the '20s, yeah. But these
01:08:00people here were not accepting that fact.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: You see, I mean, in other words, I think a lot of them felt, you got
to prove yourself.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: This, whatever you're doing may be all right now, but it's, this is
just a slip up. But let's see how long this is going to last-
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: You going to keep this up. That's what I think.
HARDY: But then there must have been the society of the successful businessmen--
CAMPBELL: Oh yeah.
HARDY: Up from the South, who would then form themselves in--
CAMPBELL: There was people, successful businessmen from the South, but when
they moved here, most of them just came to Philadelphia. Didn't have no specific
place. They didn't have somebody up here like you that they would call you on
the phone and say, "Look, we're thinking about coming up. You know my business,
I'm in the grocery business-
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: I'm in the hardware business, I'm in the cement business--"
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: "See what you can locate."
HARDY: Yeah. No, I was thinking more of the men who came up from the South as
children or as young men and then made their success.
CAMPBELL: Oh, they made their success. But they still had it rough.
01:09:00
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: Because even the average black that made a success in business in
Philadelphia got more flack from the Old Philadelphia black than they did from
the white. Now they don't want, they ain't going to never want to hear that, but
that's the truth.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: You see, I always felt that was a matter of jealousy, that I thought.
That here, I mean, and when they got among their own little set, they talked
about it. Yeah, uh, some Joe-bo came up here from South Carolina, right away, he
01:10:00ain't looking for no job, he want to open a business. It differs, the people up
here don't want no business, they want a job.
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: See, and that's a two difference. And then if the guy made a success
at a business, then he gets the frowns and the accusations from these people but
they all coming up here from someplace other than blah-blah-blah, doing this,
that and the other. But that's our biggest problem.
HARDY: Yeah, now when your father came up, you say he got into the real estate business.
CAMPBELL: Real estate, um-hm. What had happened--
HARDY: There must have been only a very few black men involved in that at the time.
CAMPBELL: Um-hm. Well, when he was in the South, he always believed in business.
And we, even when he was working, we always had a candy story, a delicatessen or
grocery store. I can remember all during my childhood, even though he would be
working, we had this store. My mother would run it. I 'dhelp. Things of that
01:11:00sort. When we came to Philadelphia, somebody, no, he was identified with a bank
in Baltimore, and he knew--um, R. R. Wright of the Citizens Southern, because
R.R.'s from Georgia too.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: He was, he had a Georgia State Industrial College. And he knew my dad,
and they were friendly. And Dr. Lemon who was a professor at the school and knew
my dad. And thing like that. So my dad talked to them when he came here. And
they advised him the real estate field was good at this particular time. And it
was good. My dad jumped into it, in about 1922. And during that period, he
acquired, I would say he owned 35 to 40 pieces of property before the crash in '29.
01:12:00
HARDY: Hm. Did he rent or did he own them for sale?
CAMPBELL: He owned them to sell them or rent them. He was doing there. Some of
them were his business properties, some of them was in-, industrial properties,
and, and living quarters. I was just saying last night, talking to my daughter,
I was telling about, I was relating right on one street, 57th Street, my dad
owned 212, 214, 222, 224, 226, 228, 238, 240. That's on one street. Then he
owned 249, 247, 245 on another street. Then he owned a big building that carried
four numbers. And so he had quite a bit.
01:13:00
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: But, you know, it was like everything else, it was all tied in with
the building and savings and loan, you know and when the bank crashed, they
called in the mortgage-
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: And he couldn't pay them off. And the bank had already closed down.
They only give him ten cents on the dollar of the money he had in the bank.
HARDY: He was working with Haddington Bank then, not Citizens and Southern?
CAMPBELL: No, Haddington Bank. See, Haddington was in--
HARDY: Was that a black-run bank?
CAMPBELL: Huh. No, white. But it was the bank identified with--I'll tell you who
started the bank. Albert M. Greenfield. But it was convenient.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: It was 60th and Market. And we lived 57th and Summer, just about three
blocks away. And my dad and them had started a relationship with the bank and he
was able to go to the bank and get the kind of money he wanted for his real
estate deals, those properties he bought, things of that sort. Yeah.
01:14:00
HARDY: Hm. Now, being a black realtor in the city, I guess he only did business
with other people in the black community. There was no--
CAMPBELL: He did, did some white business.
HARDY: There was some white business?
CAMPBELL: Yeah. He made some very fine white friends, who even after my father
passed away became very good friends of mine. A lot of them were in the real
estate business, a lot of them were lawyers-
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: And a lot of them were financiers.
HARDY: That is, that's another area where I would have assumed there would have
been a pretty strict color line.
CAMPBELL: There were, there was very few.
HARDY: Yeah. But he was fortunate enough to come in contact with some of them
who were liberal in their thinking, was ready and willing to help a black who
was struggling to get ahead.
HARDY: Right. I should probably let you go now. I've been keeping you longer
than I think we were going to. But could we, uh, talk again?
CAMPBELL: Yeah.
HARDY: I mean, this has been fascinating for me.
CAMPBELL: Glad you enjoyed it. Just call Miss Willis
[INTERRUPTION--RECORDING STOPS]
01:15:00
CAMPBELL: Personality problems. Ego trips. Why should you be president and why
not me?
HARDY: Huh, that's a problem I think isn't confined to any particular race.
CAMPBELL: Yeah. That's right. It doesn't refine to, it just happens all over.
HARDY: yeah.
CAMPBELL: But, eh, I was talking to Congressman Bill Gray yesterday, and he was
talking, and several things came up. I said, "Look, Bill, there's really nothing
to worry about. The only reason we're worrying is because you got too many guys
on an ego trip."
HARDY: Hm.
CAMPBELL: Everybody wanted to know, why him? Why not me? And all they have to
take back and think is that over a period of time, if you don't do well, we'll
move you, and then maybe me.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: And give each person a time.
HARDY: Right.
CAMPBELL: I said, because I'm a firm believer in rotating leadership. We mean,
01:16:00we may have a golden opportunity sitting out there that nobody knew about. But
let them rotate. Give them all a chance at it.
HARDY: Yeah.
CAMPBELL: They ain't going to be in office that long to destroy it, you know.
HARDY: Alright, yeah. You know what else I appreciate-
CAMPBELL: Yeah.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
