Keep the Heritage Alive!

Merlin & Beulah Kennedy

Transcription of Oral History - February 2, 1986 -Continued
MP Would you speak about when things began to change for Blacks in Bloomington and what caused the changes for Blacks?
BK To me, I can't really pinpoint it except it seemed to start when the NAACP had their convention here, right Merlin? What year was that? It was when Bill was president.
MK I think, late fifties or early sixties. No, no, no-middle sixties, I think.
BK Earlier than that, wasn't it?
MK The convention was in 19[60] or 19[61]-somewhere round there.
MP Was that the National NAACP which met in Bloomington?
BK That was the State. They were marching against restaurants that wouldn't let Blacks sit at the counters to eat their food. I think that was one of the turning points, you know. At least, afterwards then we were able to sit at the counters and eat. That was the start.
MP Who kind of spearheaded that in Bloomington? Who were the Blacks that kind of organized that activity?
BK It was really the State president. Not only did the Bloomington [members] participate, but the whole convention went down and marched against-well, it was Woolworth's at the time, wasn't it? Woolworth's and Kresges, wasn't it, they marched against.
MK Let's see now, if I can find some of those clippings.
BK Woolworth's still wasn't particular about us sitting there eating, but Kresges finally gave in, you know. Bill Kennedy was the president at that time that we had the state convention.
MP Is that your husband?
BK No, that's my husband's brother.
MP He was president of the State?
BK No, of the City of Bloomington chapter of the NAACP. Dr. Holman was the president. I can't think of his first name, but Dr. Holman was the president of the State convention.
MP And after that convention, some of the restaurants opened up? Did all of them open up?
BK No. I can't say that all of them opened up at once. It was a gradual process.
MP What about the theaters? I understand that Blacks had to sit in the back. Did that begin to open up?
BK At the Irving the Blacks sat in the back. At the Castle Theater the Blacks sat in the balcony. Never on the main floor. That opened up slowly soon after that, I think.
MP What about employment for Blacks?
BK Employment was still a hassle. Until they started having the Civil Rights Movement, nationally and also in Bloomington, did employment really give us a break, I'll say. But before then-no.
MP Were there any whites involved with the NAACP in Bloomington?
BK Yes, there was. Quite a few.
MP Who were some of the white people that were active?
BK Ralph Smith, George Warren, Jack Porter. Also, Ralph Smith's wife was involved at the time, too. Who else was there, Merlin?
MK Irvin.
MP Is that the Irvin who was head of Housing?
MK Not him. It is his cousin. I can't think of his first name. He's a cousin to Lawrence Irvin. This cousin of Lawrence. I can't think of his name. He's a teacher down in Heyworth, but he lived here.
MP Can you think of any other things about your own life that you would like to tell us?
BK Not offhand.
MP Then would you tell us any organizations that you were affiliated with?
US I was affialiated with and was secretary of the NAACP for quite a few years. We had an US group that we organized that I was associated with quite often.
MP Tell me about that group, the US group.
BK Well, they worked on basically civil rights. They were fighting the housing because there was quite a bit of discrimination in housing. They were fighting for jobs for Blacks. Jobs for minorities, period. For a long time we met down in the basement at Union Baptist.
MP That's a Black church?
BK Yes. We had our meetings down there once a week. We would organize and make strategies, you know. There was Black and whites working with that.
MP Do you know how that got organized, the US group got organized?
MK Well, it was just a group of people who was formed before they had the open-housing - I mean before they had a housing law. And it was a group that formed to help organize and fight for the housing law here in Bloomington. There were also members of the NAACP. We used that group as a splinter group to do some of the things that we couldn't do under the banner of the NAACP, you see, because the NAACP is structured in a way that some of the things you couldn't do without obtaining permission from the national or the State. We made our own rules. That way we didn't have to-no dues or nothing was paid, and we could operate more freely and could attack whatever we wanted to. And we didn't have no guidelines to do it. We were able to operate more freely on whatever incident we wanted to attack. Boom. We'd go after it.
MP What kind of strategies did you use basically?
MK Anything to bring exposure to the subject which was at hand. So anything we had that was up-like housing. We would do demonstrations. We would make trial tests. We would send people, and Ralph Smith and his wife were two and George Warren. They were all white. And they were some of the people who would test some of the structures that they had that wouldn't rent to Blacks and see if they could obtain lodging at these places. And if they did, then we would institute a complaint against these people. And we come out pretty good on that. And they were very diligent in helping us in that way.
MP Was this basically discrimination with respect to purchasing or renting or both?
MK Purchasing, renting or anything. It was just a "no, no" in those days before the open housing law took effect in Bloomington. When it was created, ours-the one here in Bloomington-Normal was one of the strongest open-housing laws in central Illinois. I think it was one of your first cities around here that actually put an open-housing law on the books.
BK That was mentioned in the Pantagraph on Martin Luther King Day. It was on the radio, too.
MP You may want to ask some question, too, Linda. I wanted to ask you what areas were kind of sealed off for Blacks? Could you give me sort of geographically where Black people lived, and where the line was? You know, in most cities there's a line. Where was that line drawn in Bloomington?
MK When I came to Bloomington, most of the Blacks lived mostly on the west side of town. Very few-well, you could call this part of the east side maybe. Well, at that time there wasn't too many Black in this area. But mostly your Black, I think, lived mostly on your west side.
MP So that's west of Washington, right?
BK No, west of Main Street.
MP That's what I wanted to say-west of Main Street.
BK There was a few living out around Empire, but very few families. Most were on the west-far west side. Maybe past Allin Street except for maybe one or families. Even past Morris Avenue because there were some places even on the west side of town that would not sell to Blacks. Would not rent to Blacks or anything.
MP What about bus transportation was it segregated?
BK No, that seemed to be no problem. They didn't have Black bus drivers at that time, some time ago. But as far as getting on the bus riding, you could sit anywhere you wanted to. That was no problem.
MP How did you get involved with the NAACP and various activities to break down discrimination?
BK Well, number one I had teenagers, and teenagers were interested in organizing. So I got into the NAACP, and then they needed an advisor for the youth group. So then I ended up being the advisor for the youth group. Along with being secretary of the NAACP.
MP So you got involved through your children.
BK Yes. That way you can keep up with your children, too. I've been trying to talk my daughter into getting involved.
MP Do you have two children?
BK No, those are my grandchildren. I have three children. One son and two daughters. My son living here. My daughter lives in Bloomington, and I have a daughter in Florida.
MP Mr. Kennedy, would you speak with us briefly about where you were born, and the circumstances under which you came to Bloomington?
MK Okay. I was born in Decatur, Illinois, which is about forty-two miles south of here. I went to school in Decatur and was drafted out of high school in 1945 and went to the Navy. Came back to Decatur after being discharged from the Navy in 1946. That's when you could get out if you had a dependent. My mother was one of my dependents, and I got out on dependency in 1946 after World War II was over in Japan and Europe both. I stayed in Decatur for about three years and in 1949 moved to Detroit and stayed there until about 1958. Then I migrated back to Bloomington. That's when Detroit had more people unemployed than most people had population. That's when (unintelligible) and Packard and all those people went out of business. Then I migrated here to Bloomington to seek employment. I had a brother here at that time, and I stayed with him. And he was involved with the NAACP. After I got here, he was the president of the NAACP for some time. Then I become vice-president. When he left, I guess I inherited it somewhere back in [19]63. Off and on, all but two years I've been president ever since. All but one term, I think, I've been president. I'm still president of the NAACP now. And along with being that, I had another hat I was wearing as chairman of the Human Relations of the City of Bloomington. And we were fortunate enough to help form the housing law, plus get the first coordinator, which the city did not have a human relations commission at that time. They had the commission, but they didn't have any staff, paid staff members. And we were fortunate enough to get a budget. The first human relations coordinator they had was AaronVessup. He was only working part-time as a coordinator at that time. The city agreed to give him some money for a small budget for stamps and I think-I forget how much money it was. I think about seven or eight thousand dollars a year for part-time staff. And then after that, they got a full budget. Also, they got full-time people and office work. I think Ray Hodges was the second person who was the human relations coordinator, and he went on to be the assistant city manager of Bloomington. And now Tim Walker has got that job along with being some kind of (unintelligible) duties to the city manager. Ray Hodges went on somewhere else to get a city manager job in some other city and that was most of the activity there in the human relations commission. Dr. Smith and I made a trip down to Jackson, Mississippi to help in the voter's registration somewhere around 1965 or [19]66. We had a lot of demonstrations around. The parade-this is one of our demonstrations that we had around Christmas at one time. You've probably heard of it, the Santa Claus deal.
MP [19]66.
MK And that was the picture of the wife, myself, and one of the grandsons. They took the picture. There is another picture of a float. We had a float in there and that was nation-wide. It went all over. It was in the Jet and everything nation-wide all over. We got national coverage on that. They didn't want a Black Santa Claus.
MP Isn't that interesting.
MK We raised the idea because a lot of people had never seen a Black Santa Claus, and we just wanted to show them the thoughts of the mayor and everyone else in Bloomington-how they react to situations of that nature. And that brought their true colors out. That caught on, and it was-all the TV coverage and wire services and everything. Plus in the Jet.
MP That's very interesting.
MK It was all over. We had-some other incidents we had. I run for political office a few times. I was unsuccessful about three times when I run for political office, which was the city council. I wasn't fortunate enough to win. This was one of the programs we had down to the Catholic High School. We was on the program down there-Dr. Smith, myself, and Dr. Morris. A bunch of us spoke down there. Here's another picture of that in the paper. The Santa Claus picture and a lot of other different clippings about different incidents that happened around in Bloomington that we covered. Some of them I don't remember. This is a picture of Dr. Smith and I-something we were involved in. I think this was on housing. That's Dr. Smith and myself. I forget who that other person was there.
BK Carrol Cox was in there too.
MK That wasn't Carrol Cox. No, it's somebody else. I don't know who that is. It's not Carrol Cox. There was somebody visiting in the community who Dr. Smith and I were talking to. I don't remember. At the time there were so many things that we were involved in and did that it is hard to remember them all. Here's some more pictures from the local papers-the Christmas and Santa Claus and things. Where is that Jet at? There's another picture of the float that we had-if I can find it.
MP Oh. So they tried to block it, right?
MK Oh, yeah. They was going to arrest me, but they decided not to, and little kids on the street didn't know me from nobody else. "There's Santa Claus." They just seen the suit, and they didn't recognize a Black person in the suit. One woman almost jerked her little boy's arm off because he called me Santa Claus. "That's not Santa Claus." And almost ripped his arm off. That's a picture of one of the floats. That's the same parade that I was going to participate in as the Black Santa Claus, which they didn't want to see.
BK And didn't let you do.
MP Isn't that strange?
MK They were very upset when we appeared. And we appeared a couple times down in City Hall in a Santa Claus suit. And that kind of upset the City Council. That was during the heyday when we were trying to get the open-housing law. When a Black had a hard time trying to find a residence and buy a residence. We had run-ins with-not the Veteran's of Foreign Wars. What's the other one? (pause) The other group. The American Legion. The American Legion. I had a run-in with them quite a while back. At that time, a Black person couldn't join the white organization. They had a Black one and a white one. Redd-Williams, I think, was the Black organization of the American Legion, and they had a white post. I challenged them to join that. I didn't get to join it, but we got publicity out of it. It run in the papers. That's one of the articles on that part of it.
MP You really got good coverage on these things.
MK Well, that was the way we planned it. That was the strategy. We called on the wire service and the newspaper. We would tip them off when these incidents were going to happen. At that time they were there. They were story hungry, and they were right on the site, specially with the national coverage with that Santa Claus. We had UPI wire service and all, of course, here in Bloomington. That's why it went nationwide. And that gave them a kind of black eye, and they didn't like that. During the time when Detroit, New York, and Watts in California was burning, we were doing our demonstrations and things here, and it was very helpful to us to get them to put the open-housing law on the books because they didn't want it here. They were kind of scared, and every time we appeared on the streets, they would be kind of afraid what was going to happen. They didn't ever know. We were fortunate enough to get our open-housing law without any bloodshed. Although we did have a couple of incidents during that time when somebody came by and threw a brick through.
End Side A
Side B
MP Attacks on your house?
MK Oh, yes. Threatening letters and everything. I used to get (unintelligible) threatening letters in the mail, phone calls, and everything at that time. It won't be nothing passed and someone wouldn't call up and threaten to do something. Or somebody would call up and want to meet me somewhere, and you wouldn't know who it was. We run through that quite a bit.
MP When they called, did you call the police?
MK At that time they had a FBI man, which was very nice. He would come by and check every now and then. He's retired now. He used to come by and check, and any incident that I heard or thought I would let him know, and they would check it out.
MP Who was responsible for the FBI coming out?
MK Well, I guess-that's their job.
MP I understand, but someone has to call them?
MK They were interested at that time. They knew that the least little thing would offset a powder keg, you see, and they were trying to keep the lid on whatever would develop. And they made-he made several visits by here to talk to me personally.
MP What about the Ku Klux Klan? Was the Ku Klux Klan active in the Bloomington area at any time to your knowledge?
MK Well, there have been crosses burned.
BK Yes, years ago. Even way back years ago they did. There was one time they had Blacks working on the railroad, and I remember one guy-they had crosses burning on the railroad where they didn't' want these Black guys to go to work.
MP Would you say that was in the thirties?
BK I'd say yes, because I was real young. I just vaguely remember it happening. It's been here way back then. They've even had crosses burning. It hasn't been too long ago.
MK This is another incident that we had. We had a Black Joseph and a white Mary in a Christmas parade one time. And that kind of upset...
MP (laughs) I guess it did.
MK That kind of upset them. It was her son and another lady was playing the part of Mary. We had a big float and everything right in the parade. They didn't know what we was going to do. So we told them we'd have a float, and when they saw our float, it was too late for them to pull us out. We were in the parade. They didn't like the idea, but there wasn't nothing they could do about it at that particular time. So the NAACP sponsored that. We did everything we could do to bring it to them to know that we was unhappy, and we was willing to go to lengths to make changes. All that helped to bring about some of the changes that some of the people enjoy now. I'm not saying that everything is all right. There is still a lot of work to be done. We have made progress, but there is a lot more progress to go. And if the people don't keep on, it will be (unintelligible), and then it will start backing up. So this is the thing that we are trying now to get our NAACP reorganized. We have quite a few youth in there now-younger people which we hope to get back, and we can start blowing our horn again and letting the people know. A lot of people are claiming that they don't know that the NAACP exists. But I guarantee that if things keep going as they is, they will know the NAACP exists again. It's taking time and we're getting our committees going. Once we get that started and get going, we'll be all right.
MP I was wondering Mr. Kennedy what was the nature of your employment?
MK Well, when I came here, it was rough. When I came here, I had training as a mechanical draftsman. Technical courses, I've taken. And every place that I went, you couldn't get hired as a draftsman. General Telephone, Portable Elevator [920 E. Grove]. The time that irked me the most was at Portable Elevator. When he interviewed me, he liked my work and he saw my plates. And he asked me did I drink, did clown, did I go out at night, and things like that. I said, "I don't do no more than what any other normal person do, you know." And General Telephone they told me my work was too good. They didn't want to hire somebody at that [level of] work.Any other time, it would be, "You get some training and we'll hire you." Their standards were, "No, we don't need anybody with those type of standards. We're looking for somebody with lesser standards." And lesser standards was not a permanent suntan. They didn't want nobody with a permanent suntan. All the places I went I never did find a job as a draftsman.
MP That was in the fifties?
MK [19]59, [19]60, around in there. Early sixties-maybe [19]59. Finally, I obtained a job working as a punch press operator in Eureka Company, and at that time I don't think they had over about two or three Black working there, at that time. I worked there for about nine years and things are beginning to change a little bit. And they had a layout job which I had been trained in, and I challenged them on that. I obtained the job. They gave me a chance, and I proved myself, and they gave me the job. And I held on to that job for a while, and I guess about eight or nine years ago a foreman job come up.
MP At Eureka?
MK At Eureka. Same place. Well, I challenged them for that and with the training and experience I had with the applicants they had, mine was superior to theirs. But I had trouble getting the job because the general manager at that time, he strictly did not want any Black foremen, see. And I had heard the rumors. He told some of the people, and they came back and told me. They were his own color who told me. He didn't want it. He bogged down as much as he could. The job stayed vacant about a month. Then finally they did make the decision that I got the job, and I've been having it ever since as supervisor in the service division of the Eureka Company. About sixty or seventy-five people in there. About sixty-some-almost seventy-and no Blacks at the present time. They did have a Black in there, but he was discharged on account of absenteeism. That was of his own making. There wasn't anything other than his own making. I've been supervisor there now for about nine years.
MP Were you ever threatened by the management because of your involvement with NAACP activities and activist kinds of things?
MK No. I had one foreman-I was going out to investigate grievances almost every week. They wasn't the onliest one-my wife was kinda ticked, too, because my paycheck was always coming up short. That's all volunteer work, and I had no other income and all this NAACP work is volunteer work. You get no money for it. You see, most people-you'd be surprised-our own Black people, think you get "x" number of dollars. That you're getting paid for this work. But it is your time and your money that you invest in this. A lot of times-I don't know when the NAACP has ever paid any postage for letters and things? That come out of my own pocket. I do that myself. And stuff like postage and other small little odds and ends, which I pay myself which I don't even charge the NAACP for it. And going different places. A lot of times we went to different places to travel.
M Yes, you were saying you went to Mississippi.
MK Well, the NAACP didn't pay any of that. It was our US group paid that money to go down there. See, a lot of things the NAACP didn't pay for, but they got credit for helping by me being a representative of the NAACP.
BK Plus the fact that when people had complaints, they never had them in the daytime. It was always one of two o'clock in the morning. And you would have to get up at five or six o'clock in the morning to go to work. People never take that into consideration, and a lot of those members that do that calling don't even have a membership. But they want to be represented when they've got a problem.
MK I've lost several dollars with people coming through. Well, they'd give them my name as the president of the NAACP. They'd get a traffic ticket or something like that. Well, they ain't got money or gas money and you go up and help them out. "As soon as I get where I'm going, I'll send it back." Today I have never gotten any of it back. Not a penny. She was lucky once. She went when I wasn't here one time and gave one individual some money. He sent that back.
BK He was real nice. He got arrested for some kind of traffic violation and didn't have any money with him. And he called here, and Merlin wasn't here. He asked me would I give him this small loan that he needed. He was in city jail, and I went up to the city jail and gave it to him. He said he'd be sure to send it back to me, and he did with a nice note attached to it. Merlin told me I'd never get it back.
MK I take that back. We did have a schoolteacher who had some grandchildren. She lived in Michigan. Her grandson and a granddaughter and the grandson's girl friend had stolen a car and some credit cards. They got caught in Illinois here, and they were in the Macon County jail up there. She wrote me, and I went up to see them. I took off from work and went to the trial. One time she wanted me to take some money up to them. I took some money up to them so he could get some cigarettes and things like that. And she did-when they got back to Michigan, after they did get the trial settled, she sent back a donation for the NAACP. I think it was a fifty dollar donation to the branch. And she was nice. But she was the only one that I had contact with. The rest of them, which was several, I got nothing back. When they turned their back, that was the end.
MP How do you think you got involved in this activity because many people didn't get involved in the sixties?
MK The need. The necessity for change.
MP Your brother was involved I know. Was your family? Were your parents involved in activist activities?
MK No, not my parents. Just my brother and I from my family that was involved.
MP How did you learn to be a draftsman?
MK That's when I was in Detroit, I spent many hours on the drafting board at the Chrysler Engineering Institute where I went five years, going nights and working days. Worked full eight hours a day and going three hours a night. I went to the Chrysler Institute for five years straight. I went through blueprint reading, mechanical drafting, layout and design, and when I finished that I went to diesel engineering for a year and a half. I had some GI Bill left, and I took about a year and a half of diesel engineering. That's mostly design and stuff like that. And I took a course in diesel maintenance, which I tried to get job which was two years apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic, and I couldn't-at that time they could tell you, "No, we're not hiring no Blacks." It was straight out "no." There was no law; no affirmative action. You just couldn't no job at all. For a brief time when I first got out of service, I took aviation. I had had about six months, about ninety hours in the air flying, as a pilot down in Decatur at (Unintelligible) Airfield where I was born, when I first got out of service. I was going to try to get a commercial pilot's license. But after I moved away from Decatur, I didn't continue. I went into the drafting field, diesel mechanic, diesel engineering, and into drafting, but I attended several technical schools throughout my time. I've spent probably most of my time in school in the younger days. Every chance or opportunity I got to go to school I was there. It was hard though trying to work eight hours and going to school. One time I had a little part-time job, working, going to school, while I was in Detroit, and working eight hours in the daytime. And then another little part-time job and trying to go to school.
MP That was rough.
MK You better believe it was and hard to find time to study. That was quite a bit. And I started out to ISU back in, I think it was [19]62 or [19]63. At that time, work wasn't too stable here. Just about the time I got started, I got laid off, and at that time they had a strict unemployment laws. You had to be available for work. I was going to school in the day time and I was working the night shift, but they made me quit ISU in order to draw unemployment compensation. I couldn't exist because I didn't have no other income. So I had to drop out. I just got started that semester, and I had to drop out because he told me down in the unemployment office, you can not go to school and draw unemployment compensation both. I was laid off for two or three months at least. Well, I had to use that money for income. So I had to drop out of ISU. And I never did go back.
MP But all that training paid off because you have a very good position now, right?
MK Yeah, it's fair. It's a good position.
MP I was wondering about Black businesses in this community. When did Black businesses begin to develop as far as you are concerned? Like barbershops or restaurants?
BK (pause) Actually, Black businesses as far as taverns are concerned-now as far back as I can remember, they've had the two taverns, you know. This is to keep the Blacks in their own little place. So as far back as I can remember, they've had two taverns going.
MP Which ones are those?
BK Used to be Al Nathan had one on the West Side called the Royal Palms, and then the Third Ward Club, which still exists. And they did have-I remember when I was a teenager Mrs. Nathan had a restaurant right down here. This was before the viaduct was rebuilt. There was a little place down there where she had a restaurant down there. And every now and then there was a restaurant that would crop up or something like that. We had one lady that had a cleaning business. That was when I was working at the hospital. Then there was an explosion where she got badly burned. And she didn't-her business was out on West Washington Street. She really didn't get completely well. They done a lot of skin grafts and everything. Her body was two-thirds burned. Consequently that was closed down. They had little businesses crop up.
MP Did Black people have difficulty getting into business? Did whites support it? Did they have difficulty getting loans?
BK Back then they didn't have the deals they have now. Now, if a Black person wants to get started, I understand that some get started off of these small loans. They might not thrive. I noticed that several of them have folded up, also. So have white businesses.
MP But I'm speaking about the forties and fifties-for example, did Black people have difficulty getting loans or mortgagees from banks to your knowledge?
BK I can't say.
MP I want to ask you one other question about Saint Joseph's. Did you know a lady by the name of Sister Antona?
BK Sister Antona?
MP A Black lady who was interested in being a nun and working at Saint Joseph's Hospital - I thought you may have remembered-but she was refused. They would not permit her to get training at Saint Joseph's.
BK I think I know who you are talking about because she went into the nunnery real early. Is she the one who had TB (unintelligible)?
MP Yes.
BK Okay. I didn't know her other name. Okay, Betty Lu Ebo. Her and I went to school together. Betty Lu Ebo and I went to school together. And I remember at the time that Betty Lu got sick, she was a patient over at Saint Joe's for quite some time, and she had TB of the bone. Then she got interested in becoming a nun. She couldn't go...
MP They rejected her. They wouldn't permit her to go to Saint Joseph's.
BK Her and I kept in contact. In fact, after she became a Sister, she came to visit me once and I was working, and her time was limited so I didn't get see her. We were real good friends. I heard from once or twice when she was down in Saint Louis. At one time she was pretty sick down there. Now, the last time I heard Betty Lu was up in Wisconsin some place.
MP She's in Mississippi now. I saw her in 1984, I suppose it was.
BK Oh, she's in Mississippi now. How is she doing?
MP Quite fine. I wanted to get your concurrence about Saint Joseph's position regarding Blacks at that time, accepting Blacks in training.
BK No. It was only back in I would say forty-no, it would have to be the late fifties that they actually started training Blacks in the nursing home. They had their own nursing home there. No. It had to be before then because I started at GE in[19]55. There was one girl in training I would say in [19]53. She was the first one to my knowledge. Her name was Jones. There was another one, but I didn't have too much contact with her so I don't know what her name was. But there was two of them in the class together. Eventually, both of them dropped out. But those were the first two Blacks who were accepted in the nursing training program.
MP Is there anything else that you would like to share?
GE at one time, but the people seemed to reject his ideas to a point. Then this is what would bring them out to meetings-but I remember that my first real contact was when Reverend Jones was president of the NAACP.
MP I see.
BK He would walk everywhere he would go. And one time we seen him walking out to GE from over here. And you know where GE is, and he had walked out there. But he had a way of attacking things, and the people would hear about it, and they would really get out to the meetings. I don't know how he did it, but he did. He always had something going.
MP What was his first name? What church was he affiliated with?
BK He was affiliated with Wayman A.M.E. Paul Jones, Reverend Paul Jones, I think, was his name.
MP You said he was radical.
BK The people thought he was radical. The Black people weren't even ready for him. You see what I'm saying?
MP What did he do? What kind of things did he do that caused people to think he was radical?
BK Like he would attack employment at GE or-I can't remember some of the things that he did, but he always had the people on the ball. Especially, the younger group of people like we were then.
MK Most of the people-that's when I first came to Bloomington-a lot of them were "don't rock the boat" type people. When he would do something-they were scared he was going to do something-they would like to be there to try to cool him down. That's why they would come out. So if he had anything that he was going to do, a lot of the "don't do nothing" people would be there to try to cool it down because they might have started buying some old house or something and they feel they're doing all right. More than what they had been doing. And they were scared "the man" was going to take it away from them or something. And they were scared that he would upset the boat. So they would be there to see what he was going to do. It was more out of fear.
MP Than really being supportive?
MK Right.
BK That's the reason I called him a radical because at that time the people were not ready for what they was doing.
MK That was before the times of the bus rides down in Alabama and places like that because they were afraid. People didn't have the nerve to stand up against "Charley," you know, to do what they wanted to, see. That was just in the beginnings of things. It wasn't until the late sixties that the people got enough nerve to stand up for some of the things they really wanted to and were willing to make the sacrifice - whatever - to gain those means. That's the thing if you are willing to pay the sacrifice for it, you can obtain some of those things. If you're not, just going to get lost by the wayside.
MP Were you involved with Dr. Martin Luther King?
MK No, I never did have any contact with Dr. King. One of his lieutenants, Jesse Jackson, he was here. I was in a program once way back in the sixties. Jesse, when he was young, was here for a program at Illinois Wesleyan. We were on the same panel at one time. I got a chance to meet him then. He was much younger than he is now. That was back in the early days in the sixties when he was here. That's the only contact I had with him.
BK But we have got to see Martin Luther King speak. We have heard him speak at Wesleyan. I mean he was a dynamite speaker.
MP Did you get an autograph?
BK We didn't get that close. (laughs)
MK That's right. He spoke at Wesleyan. We were there that night.
BK because he was well guarded. We didn't really get that close.
MP I'm sure because if you were protected by the FBI, I'm sure he was.
MP I appreciate this very much because this part is very important to have.
End Side B
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