Joel Buchanan Archive of African American History: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/ohfb

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Program Director: Dr. Paul Ortiz 241 Pugh Hall PO Box 115215 Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-7168 https://oral.history.ufl.edu

AAHP 373 Charles Washington African American History Project (AAHP) Interviewed by Ryan Morini on April 18, 2015 2 hours, 26 minutes | 66 pages

Abstract: Mr. Washington begins by describing his upbringing, including his family, schooling, and church involvement. He speaks about his experiences with racism in his hometown before moving to Ocala for community college. After moving to Ocala, Washington discusses his involvement with the Civil Rights Movement of Ocala and his relationships with civil rights leaders there. The interview concludes with some of Mr. Washington’s thoughts on how his experiences in Ocala have impacted him as well as his work with the NAACP.

Keywords: Civil Rights, Ocala, Florida History, Central Florida, Black History, African American, NAACP

For information on terms of use of this interview, please see the SPOHP Creative Commons license at http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AfricanAmericanOralHistory.

AAHP 373 Interviewee: Dr. Charles Washington Interviewer: Ryan Morini Date: April 18, 2015

M: This is Ryan Morini, I’m—okay, it’s counting down instead of counting up. I’m

with the Sam Proctor Oral History Program. I’m sitting here with Charles

Washington in Tallahassee, Florida. The date is April 18, 2015. Thank you for

joining me today.

W: Thank you for inviting me.

M: Could I ask—could you state your full name?

W: Sure. Charles Woodrow Washington.

M: Okay. And where were you born?

W: I was born in Colquitt, Georgia.

M: Colquitt, Georgia. Okay, I don’t know exactly where that is. Is that south Georgia

or—?

W: It’s south Georgia.

M: And when were you born?

W: December 25th, 1942.

M: December 25th. Wow. And during the War, no less. That’s quite a birth! Was that

at a hospital, was it at home with a midwife—?

W: Midwife.

M: Okay. Do you know who that midwife was?

W: Have no idea.

M: You just know it was—

W: Whoever she was, she was good. [Laughter]

M: So that’s—so what was growing up in Colquitt like? AAHP 373; Washington; Page 2

W: I have no idea, because I did not grow up in Colquitt. I was born in Colquitt. We

moved from Colquitt when I was six months old, so I’m told. And we moved to

Florida, and I grew up in Florida.

M: Okay, so where in Florida did you move to?

W: I believe the initial place to which we moved was a small town called Davenport,

D-A-V-E-N-P-O-R-T, which is four miles from Haines City, Florida. I grew up part

of my early years living with my grandmother. My mother, and my oldest sister

and I, and my father, at the time were living with my grandmother in Davenport,

Florida. I don’t know exactly how long we lived there, but we then moved to

Haines City, Florida, which is four miles maybe to the, I’m not sure whether it’s to

the north or the northeast of Davenport. And I grew up in this little town called

Haines City.

M: Okay. So was that where your family was from originally? How did you get up to

Colquitt? Was that—?

W: Well, most of my in-laws were from the Georgia area. My grandparents were

from Georgia, my grandfather were from Georgia. Now, I don’t know a great deal

about my grandparents, great-grandparents. I know some. But, as in many

families, history, and recording of that history, are not necessarily the kinds of

things that people did easily and did very well. But, we grew up in Haines City. I

am a product of a broken family—that is, my mother and father divorced when I

was quite young. And therefore, I grew up in a single-parent household, but all

the challenges associated with that are a part of who I am.

M: Could I ask your grandmother’s name, who you were living with in Davenport? AAHP 373; Washington; Page 3

W: Yes. Paralee Allen. P-A-R-A-L-E-E. Allen.

M : Okay. And so, had she been living in Davenport for long, or—?

W: I don’t know how long she had been living there, but she continued to live there

for a while. And then she subsequently moved from Davenport to Ft. Lauderdale.

I suppose she had been there for a while, but I have no idea how long she had

been there prior to our going there.

M: Do you have any memories of her you would want to share?

W: Oh! [Laughter] I used to refer to her as the sweetest, loveliest, most loving,

meanest grandmother in the world. Meaning that, she was someone who loved

you dearly, but who did not spare points of discipline to remind you of when you

had stepped beyond boundaries, or when you have challenged beyond reason.

So, she had a way of teaching you how to be disciplined. How to be responsible.

But at the same time, she was a very loving and kind person. I miss her dearly.

M: And so, you ended up growing up in Haines City, which was a larger—larger than

Davenport, it sounds like, yeah.

W: I’m glad the things—we can talk about things in relative terms. It was marginally

larger. [Laughter] Not a whole lot larger, but larger. And still is.

M: And so it was your mother who was raising the family there?

W: Yes.

M: What did she do for a living?

W: Well, the very early days I can’t really say. But I do know that later on, my mother

had developed an interest in the work of cosmetology. And during those days,

people referred to it as “doing hair.” This is prior to a lot of the products on the AAHP 373; Washington; Page 4

market now for African American women. I don’t believe that market was

perceived as one that had any productive end financially in the early days when

no one had any interest in providing products. And so, Black beauticians had to

do—or chose to do things that Black women needed to have done for their hair.

And the whole process of pressing hair, waxing hair, curling hair, all the things

that go into making Black women’s hair appropriate to their desire. I always

thought their hair was beautiful as it was—I mean, still do. But that was what my

mother did. She became a beautician, and she did that for a number of years.

And I guess by the time I graduated from high school, for some reason, that

occupational ability faded. I don’t remember her really doing that toward the latter

part of my high school days. She picked up an odd job doing some work at a

local school system—custodial work, which broke my heart. But it also became a

high motivator.

M: I see. Did she run her own salon, or did she—

W: No, she didn’t. She worked at—well, sort of, yes and no. You don’t—when you

say, “run her own salon,” it suggests that there was a place where you went and

paid rent, and there were other businesses, and that attracted customers. No, the

part of the front porch was converted into a shop. That’s where that took place,

until it did not take place.

M: I see. Oh, could I ask her name?

W: Yes. Leola, L-E-O-L-A, Woodard Washington. Woodard was her maiden name.

M: I see. And so she had grown up in Georgia.

W: Yes. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 5

M: And moved there. Okay. Do you know where in Georgia she grew up?

W: I believe in the same place, Colquitt.

M: Okay. Now, you mentioned previously—so, in one of our other interviews, it

stated that you were a Catholic, or possibly a Catholic. And you said—

W: I thought both of those were quite interesting. I guess I could possibly have been

a Catholic in a previous life; I have not been one in this life. And maybe I’ll be a

Catholic in a future life. But I don’t have any recollection of ever even going to a

Catholic church prior to graduating from high school and going to Ocala. So that

was probably just a misstatement by someone who thought that maybe I had

such humility or persona that it was a Catholic persona. [Laughter]

M: Fair guess. So, did you go to a church growing up?

W: Oh, yes. I went to a Baptist church. I joined a church when I was in 11th grade, in

1959. And it was the Beulah Baptist Church. I remember.

M: Is there anything in particular—and you hadn’t been going to church regularly

prior to that, or—?

W: Oh, you usually go to church with some degree of regularity before you take that

step of joining one. I went to church for many years before joining, because my

mother insisted that we go to Sunday School, and she took us to church. It was

part of a duty growing up.

M: How big was the church there? Was that a—?

W: Oh, I can’t say exactly, but I would imagine there were maybe 80, 90 members.

Churches were quite small.

M: Okay. What about school? Where did you go to school there? AAHP 373; Washington; Page 6

W: I went to school in Haines City. Oakland Elementary School, Oakland High

School. And I guess prior to going to Oakland Elementary School, I remember

going to a one-room schoolhouse in Davenport. The early elementary school

years. I remember that little one-room building. And then, when we moved to

Haines City, we then went to the Oakland Elementary School. I say Oakland

Elementary, because these were all segregated schools. And if you were going

to elementary school, or high school, in Haines City at that time and you were not

African American, you were going to the Haines City High School, Haines City

Elementary School. But ours was the Oakland Elementary, High School. And we

were all located across the tracks, as it were. You could define the location of the

Black community if you found the railroad tracks. Once you crossed the railroad

tracks, you knew that eventually, north or south of that crossing, or east or west if

it were going the other direction, you would run into the Black community.

M: Was that a palpable distinction growing up?

W: It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now. And as it was then, it still is now in many cities.

Many towns. That we don’t talk about, we don’t see advertised and discussed in

the media beyond those early discussions in the [19]60s when we talked about

poverty in America. Much of that poverty still is, and many of those communities

still are.

M: So the—what kinds of memories do you have of the Oakland school? Or schools,

I guess, but—and to contextualize, I know—so for instance, in Gainesville, it’s a

truism that there was less funding for Black schools. That administrators and

teachers had to fight for what they had. But at the same time, the alumni are AAHP 373; Washington; Page 7

fiercely proud of Lincoln High School, because of things that it instilled in them

that they believe they carry with them. So, in that context, I mean, how would you

reflect on the experience of Oakland school? Did it—?

W: I have nothing but admiration for each and every teacher who has taught me.

Even the ones when they taught me, I thought perhaps they were not as

understanding of my point of view as I think they should have been. Because

certainly I delivered more than they, that’s why I was a student and they were the

teacher. [Laughter] But I respect them for their tolerance, for their patience, for

their rigor, and for their insistence that I insist that I had something to contribute

to life, and that they were there to help me discover how to do that. I don’t

remember a teacher who did not appear to be prepared when he or she came

into the classroom, who did not every day seem dedicated to the purpose of

helping me to unlock the keys to knowledge. They were not afraid to challenge

me, to push me, to insist that I do the homework, that I bring my work back to

school, that I not lose my books, that I am properly reported to my parents when I

did the things that every growing-up kid wants to do that parents ought not to

know. [Laughter] And there were certain teachers who are constantly in the

forefront of my mind as I live. By name, I remember people. And their persona,

what they represented, what they taught me. I have a great deal of respect for

them now. During that time, did I perceive us to be deficit in funds, deficit in

facilities? In order to understand the deficiency in your life, you must have some

sense of what non-deficiency is. Or you know that there’s a shortage, but how

much of a shortage, you don’t know. You know that there’s a desire. And how AAHP 373; Washington; Page 8 much of a desire imposed upon you by external circumstances, you have no idea until you see the other side. For example, I did not realize when I graduated from high school, until I had gone in those last couple years while in high school to a high school that had certain programs, that we didn’t have them. And when I would go to a larger school in a larger school district, where I would see a timpani in a band, for example. “What’s that? What was that sound?” If I could see the chimes, and whole percussion section was more than a drum, and a bass drum and a snare drum—I mean, I was amazed. Where did that come from? We’ve never seen that, we’ve never had that. I remember once, on one of the high school tests, one of the questions had to do with an escalator. I had never—I really had not read, I have to say, I had never read the word “escalator” in anything I had read before. I’d certainly never seen one. And I certainly did not know it was something you rode on, that took you from one place to the other. So if you get a question that asks you something about, someone rode up an escalator that had X number of steps that went at the rate of number of steps per minute, how many minutes would it take for the escalator to get from step one to step two? You’d say, “Duh? I wish I knew!” But it certainly was not a culturally- biased test, as I was told at the time! My point is, there were teachers who taught math, who apparently had gone to schools that had deficiencies, too. But they had learned to meet their deficiencies with their external study and continuous life experiences, who taught us how to do the same thing. How do you run a race, when the starting line looks like it’s the same, but it’s not? And once you realize that once you’re out of the box, this other person’s already ten yards AAHP 373; Washington; Page 9

ahead of you, what do you do to catch up? So you must assume that you’re not

at the starting line, and you must start working before you get to the starting line.

So, I have nothing but respect for those teachers. They did a good job.

M: You said you remember their names. Are there any names you might recall

offhand, or who really stood out?

W: Oh, yes. [Laughter] Now, many of the names are last names—you didn’t know

your teachers’ first names. But, Mrs. Carnegie. Mrs. Carnegie taught me English,

and I will never forget Mrs. Carnegie. I have outlined so many sentences that

sometimes I felt that I was destined to outline a sentence. They don’t even do

that anymore in schools—where’s the subject, where’s the verb, where’s the

adjective? You know? Where’s the adverb, the indirect object, the object. This

lady was just fierce about your learning the structure of the language, and your

appreciating words. Appreciating communication. “Words have meaning,” she

would say. You just don’t use any word to convey any idea. And when you use a

word to convey an idea, try to make sure to use the word that conveys the idea

you are conveying. That lady was awesome. My math teacher, and my coach.

Many days, coaches had to do other things. You weren’t just hired to be a coach.

You were hired to be a teacher in a substantive area. And if you knew how to

coach, you were now the coach and the teacher. Or the other way around. “You

were a great athlete, you played sports in college, you majored in athletics. So,

what else can you do?” “Well, I know a little bit of Social Studies.” “All right, well,

you’re a Social Studies teacher, but you’re also the coach.” And the salaries did

not measure up to the duties. But Charles Streeter. This was a slight fellow from AAHP 373; Washington; Page 10

Tennessee. I guess if Streeter weighed any more than 155 pounds as a full- grown man, he must have been wet. But I can meet no tougher guy. I know of no stronger person. Just, strong. Streeter taught you that mathematics was the key to almost anything. If you learned math, you could solve almost any problem.

Logic was inherent in math. Purpose was inherent in math. Goals and objectives were attained through math. That you had to learn how to think rigorously. And he pushed us on that. And on the football field, on the basketball court: character.

[Pause, tearing up] I get a little bit emotional. Because these people, they did the very best they could. They made you feel as if you were not only failing yourself, you were failing them. And the community. You had to succeed. And so, our job was to succeed. I can think of Lillian Vereen. In fact, I think in one of your interviews, someone mentioned Eddie Vereen. Lillian Vereen was Eddie

Vereen’s sister. She taught us music, chorus. But chorus was not just singing a song. It was understanding the lyrics, understanding the structure of the music, understanding harmony. Understanding that you were singing with folks. It taught you about community. It taught you about relationships. It taught you about how one part added to another part, created a symphonic, harmonious outcome. So you can’t just stand out as if only you were doing this. There were others there.

People in the background. People in the supporting side. That was one of those persons. Social Studies, Jim Miles. I used to get so angry with him. I thought he was arrogant and pompous because he paraded up and down the aisles of the classroom as if he literally was the president of the United States, or he was a senator. Or he was a congressman, or he was a mayor. And he would bark out AAHP 373; Washington; Page 11 these statements of leadership and public policy, and ask you whether you were going to vote for it or support it, and why. And you sit there saying, “I don’t know.

I don’t care!” And you had to care. And he pushed you to care. He pushed you to respect the Founding Fathers’ documents. And we learned the Preamble to the

Constitution early, early on. And anytime, he would just toss it on an exam:

“Quote the Preamble to the Constitution.” “Had nothing to do with the

Constitution! Why is he asking us this today?” And of course, Mr. Jim Bowers. It’s interesting; Mr. Bowers and I had a conversation, I think it was last year, after more than 55 years, I had never heard his voice. I happened to have gotten an email from someone and said that he had had the occasion to run into Mr.

Bowers at some event, and he had his telephone number. I called Mr. Bowers out of the blue. And would you believe, after 54 years, I told him who I was, what he taught me, he thought for a moment, and he says, “Oh yes, I remember you, boy!” And I felt I was really in trouble! [Laughter] What did I do? I said, “How is it that you remember me, Mr. Bowers?” “You were that boy that I always had to plan my test around.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, I knew if I planned it and you finished it in 30 minutes, it must have been too easy. But if it took you an hour, it must have been too hard. Because I knew the other kids weren’t going to pass it.” I said, “Mr. Bowers, that’s pretty kind of you, but I think that’s an overstatement, isn’t it?” “No! You just didn’t realize what you had. You were always pushing back.” And that was quite a compliment! Here’s a guy who remembers after 50-plus years. Who does that? You asked me my name a moment ago. 72 years ago, but I did remember it! But I could go down the list. I AAHP 373; Washington; Page 12 remember the homeroom teacher. In those days, you had to have homeroom.

You came together before you started everything else. You sang a song, and you had a prayer, and then you went to your classes. Well, you know, today you don’t do those things. You’ve got to be careful about prayer, you may not sing a prayer at all. You said the Pledge of Allegiance. You may not say that today at all. And we did something which I challenged one day, and it caused this—I only remember her first name, Ms. Deborah someone. It will come to me. But, she had never thought about this question. But she stopped it after I asked her one day. We used to have to stand up and sing the song, “Oh, I wish I was in the land”—Dixie is the song.

“Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton”

Something about “days won’t be forgotten

Look away, look away

Back in Dixie.”

We sang that one day, and I said, “I’m not singing that song anymore.” And she says, “What?” “I’m not singing that song anymore.” She says, “Why do you say that, Charles?” I said, “I don’t like it. Look at what it says. I don’t wish I was back in the land of cotton, old days back there will not be forgotten! They ought to be forgotten, and we ought not to be singing that song.” And everybody in the class said exactly the same thing. We never sang that song again. And she said, “You know, I’d never thought about it, young man.” And that’s what I liked about the teachers, too. We were kids. Mrs. Jackson. I’ve got to tell you Mrs. Jackson, I’ll stop there. Mrs. Jackson was a slight woman. I guess she weighed 110 pounds. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 13

Five feet two inches, maybe. She taught us shorthand and typing. Now, I’m in the

11th grade. And I’m told, “You have to take shorthand and typing.” And I said,

“Why? I don’t want to learn any shorthand! I don’t want to type!” Think about that: today, everybody has to type. [Laughter] Mrs. Jackson walked in, and she said to us, “Good morning ladies and gentlemen,” just as quietly. There are 35 of us sitting in the classroom, and we’re looking at each other, the guys. She says, “I am Mrs. Jackson. That’s not my name, I am Mrs. Jackson. I will be teaching you shorthand and typing. Yes, I did say shorthand and typing.” There was this gray shorthand book. Somebody way back at University of Florida may know what I’m talking about, stenographer’s book. “You will have a stenographer’s pad as part of your supplies, and you will type.” The typewriters were the royal typewriters, non-electric. You may have never seen one. You hit a key, it took some pressure for the key to hit the ribbon, and it bounced back, and if it got stuck, you had to keep unsticking it. And [makes tapping noises], you learned the homeroom keys.

And so we chuckled. And she said to us, “Young men, I want you to hear me very carefully. I will only say this once. I will tolerate no nonsense from you or anyone else in this classroom. I hope you understand me. I will not tolerate it from day one. Is there any question?” Somebody snickered. [Snickering] She said, “Is there a problem?” And the snickering got a little louder. And she caught the first guy who started it. And she says, “Mr. Robinson—that is your name, isn’t it?” “Yes ma’am.” “Would you come up here please?” And he walked up. And we were all just sort of holding our hands and arms, and waiting to see what happens. She says, “Mr. Robinson, did you understand what I said a moment AAHP 373; Washington; Page 14

ago?” He says, “Yes ma’am.” She says, “Oh, so you don’t have a hearing

problem.” He said, “No, ma’am.” “Then you understood what I said. And I think

you will recall my saying I would not tolerate any nonsense from day one.” “Yes

ma’am.” “Will you please go back and get your belongings off of your desk? You

are excused for the day. And I just want to remind you that the assignment I will

give to your classmates today, I expect you to have it ready for next week.” He

says, “What?” “No, not ‘what.’ ‘Yes, ma’am.’ You may get your things.” He got his

stuff, walked out—you could hear a pin drop on cotton! From that day, Mrs.

Jackson never had a problem with anybody. We all learned shorthand and

typing. I learned how to type 65 words a minute. [Laughter] Enough of that.

M: Well, but that, those are some powerful stories. So, what was the—

[Break in recording after brief interruption]

M: So, what was the community like in Haines City then?

W: It was a very segregated community. But it was—it was a citrus town. It was

seasonal work. During the fall, you picked oranges. I picked fruit in the fruit

groves. I started going to the fruit groves when I was thirteen years old. It was

probably the greatest motivator to do something else in your life that I could have

ever had. Rattlesnakes are running around on the ground, carrying around an

eighteen-to-twenty-four foot ladder when you’re sixteen years old; thirteen years

old, it was about a twelve foot then, and it got taller as you got older. And laying

them on trees, and racing up the top, and carrying a fruit bag across your

shoulder, getting thorns through the gloves as you’re picking the fruit and

bringing it down. And being paid this enormous amount of money, of seventeen AAHP 373; Washington; Page 15 cents per box of fruit. Think about that! You had to work to pick one hundred boxes of fruit to make seventeen dollars in a day. And these were men with families. And they had their kids out there on the weekends. And I did this on the weekends, and when there were holidays. And so, hard-working people, working very hard. Getting up very early in the morning, catching these trucks that would go from Haines City as far as Bartow, or Lake Wales, and as far as Leesburg sometimes. Traveling a long time in the morning to get there, working until the sun goes down, and driving all the way back and getting off, and carrying whatever you took for your lunch, and not really getting paid very much. So you had this kind of life that you lived. And so it was hard. And you had to go to school, and when you are living without a father you have to help make up the income, and so you have to find something else to do. I worked for much of my high school days cleaning up the White school across town, Haines City High

School, Middle School. It was a good job I had, but I think I was only making about fifty cents an hour. It’s not much. And on Saturdays, I remember cleaning up a doctor’s office, scrubbing and waxing his floors. Paid me seventy-five cents an hour. And this was done on my knees. This is not with a, you didn’t apply the wax any other way, it was this Johnson wax that you applied by hand. He did have a toothbrush buffer that was very small, not a commercial one, and cleaning up all the other debris left around. And I remember shining shoes in a White barbershop. There was no salary for that. The goal was, you clean up the barbershop, you were given the right to shine the shoes over there, and if you made money, you made money. If you didn’t, you didn’t. But in order to have a AAHP 373; Washington; Page 16 stand, you had to clean up the barbershop, and I think we were charging something like twenty-five cents for a pair of shoes to be shined. And a lot of folks weren’t interested in the shine, they were interested in the accoutrements to the process. You know, they were all imbued with the “stepin flechit” kind of movie, and the shoeshine guy shining the shoes, and you’re popping the rag.

And so what do you do? You learn to survive. You learn to pop a rag. So sure, I can pop a rag as I shine shoes. In fact, once I was going through an airport maybe ten, fifteen years ago. A guy was shining my shoes. Was a Black guy.

And I said, “You know, man? You could make a whole lot more money, and do half as much work.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “You don’t have to put as much shoe polish as you put on my shoe to make them shine that way.

There’s a way you can use that shoeshine rag, and it’ll give it a gloss.” He says,

“Don’t tell me, man, how to shine shoes! I’ve been doing this for X number of years!” Said, “I’ll tell you what: I’m going to pay you to shine my shoes, and when

I finish, I want you to get on the stand, I’m going to shine your shoes free.” “Are you crazy?” I said, “No. I want you to do that, okay?” He did. And of course, since

I’d done this when I was a kid, I knew exactly how you hold the rag, how you make the air get caught in the upper slope of one side of the rag as you bring it toward the shoe, and it gives a nice little “pop.” And how to make sure it goes up on the other side, and get a little rhythm. And when I did that, he was smiling. He says, “Hey, that’s pretty good! Where’d you learn that?” And I said, “I was a kid, too, once, you know? Now, there’re some folks who’ll flip you a dollar just because you pricked something in their old, warped mind. But you’re making AAHP 373; Washington; Page 17

money. And if you want to make some additional money, you’re not

compromising any integrity, you’re just using a skill. Try it. See what happens.

But don’t do it if you’re not comfortable. But if you use every tool you can to

enhance yourself, why not? Well anyway, I made enough when I worked on the

weekends to help out, and to help my mom and so forth. Now, I think your

question really started out with asking me something else.

M: Well, no, that’s part of it, too. I was just asking about the community, which is a

multi-directional kind of thing.

W: It’s multifaceted. There’s another piece of the community. There was something

called the “Mayor of Oakland.” This is how the White community decided, they

wanted to make sure they kept a lid on that part of the town. So, I don’t know

how we got this so-called “Mayor of Oakland.” We didn’t go to the polls to elect a

mayor of Oakland, we were just informed we had a mayor of Oakland. And it was

one of the prominent Black men there, who was educated, had a little business, I

think it was, and had rapport with the White community. So I guess it was the

White establishment’s way of sort of keeping the ‘Coloreds’ in check. And of

course, he would ride around, and he would talk to folks, and we liked him. The

idea was good. But it would have been nice had we voted for him, and we knew

what he was getting paid, or where was the money coming from, and why did we

not have something to say about it? And that was eventually changed. We had

one Black police officer. Everybody knew him. We felt pretty much the same way

about him, but—he was a decent fellow, but every now and then we thought that

he would overstep his boundaries for the very reason that I just said: “This is a AAHP 373; Washington; Page 18

way to make sure that you keep them Coloreds in line, now, in there, you hear?”

But he had to live, too. He had to feed his family. And I guess he figured, “I’d

rather do it than have some White guy come around here who does not know the

community, and I’ll just have to do the best job I can.” And I think that happened

for a while. There was always need in the community. Always fighting to try to get

the roads paved. I remember growing up with my Schwinn bicycle that I got one

Christmas that I’d waited for for several, several Christmases. It had a little

shock-absorber in the front. And that was great, because we had a lot of potholes

in the street, and it was fun for me, because when I’d get in the pothole, you

know, the shock absorber would give me a lift out of the hole. But we had to fight

for the streets being paved, and there being street lights, and getting something

for the recreation center, and having a center that’s open that we could play in,

and a swimming pool. Those things were not easily won, and they were not

plentiful.

M: And so, Oakland. I thought it was just the name of the school. Was that known as

the Black part of town? Or was Oakland a neighborhood, or—?

W: They referred—when I say “they,” I think, the White community, and many of the

African Americans—just referred to the whole area as Oakland. All live in

Haines City. But you wouldn’t write “Oakland” on any correspondence, because

no one would know where Oakland was, except people who lived in Oakland and

in Haines City. I know—there was an interesting experience I had. It was my

father—was it my father who came down once? And he asked me to go down

with him to, he called him “Boolie Cook”’s place. The Cook family in Haines City AAHP 373; Washington; Page 19 owned a citrus industry. And their office was located right across the railroad track, and my father says, “You know about Boolie Cook, boy?” I said, “No, I don’t know any—isn’t that the White guy up there?” He said, “Oh, yeah. I want you to go down here with me? I’m going down to see Boolie.” I said, “You know this guy?” He said, “I knew his father, back in Georgia.” Well, it turned out that there was this interesting relationship between that family and part of my family back in Colquitt that I knew nothing about, and they literally, they knew each other. It was either my father or one of my uncles. But I was amazed, because when he walked in, he walked in as if he knew him as a person. He walked in, “Is

Boolie here?” You just didn’t do that, in that day and time. And the reaction was,

“Who’re you?” And he told them who he was. He said, “Well, you don’t come in here asking for Boolie.” He said, “Well, you tell him I’m here.” And the guy comes out, and they had a conversation and all that. And I never could quite understand what that was all about. But what it did tell me was that, beneath this exterior of this racial divide that we have created that is for convenience, and that helps us to foster these very undesirable manifestations of human behavior, there is a commonality of purpose that we identify with, and we value. And we’re not free to free ourselves of the exterior. I had that same kind of experience, I think, when I went to Mississippi. And so, I’ve always thought that, all of the things that we’re experiencing today which anger me so much, they are solvable, they are treatable. We don’t have to have it. But we find it convenient, and the value of the convenience, to us, is greater than the value we perceived or what we could AAHP 373; Washington; Page 20

have if we were to resolve it. And that hurts me, deeply. And I lived through that,

in that little town.

M: Yeah. I mean, it’s almost as if people find it comforting to hold onto things that

are hurting everybody in the long run. It’s a strange phenomenon. But, so—

you’re describing a lot of things that, clearly, in hindsight, were part of a racist, a

White supremacist, system. How aware of that were you growing up? I mean, did

you hear talk of—I know Civil Rights might not have been the word, exactly, but

did you hear discussions of changing things, or was that a later discussion that

came up?

W: Well, remember, I graduated in 1960.

M: Oh, well—yeah.

W: Okay? Now, we didn’t have the things that other kids had. I think we may have

had a black-and-white television in 1960, I’m not sure. I remember a lot of radio,

listening to a lot of radio programs. And so, I’m not sure I knew about the bus

boycott before I left high school. I should have. I’m pretty sure I did. High school

must have taught me that. But, sure. You lived racism. You formulated opinions

early. I formulated my early opinion somewhere in middle school. I remember

once, there was a rap on the door, and my mom said, “Get the door.” And I went

to the door. I says, “Yes? What can I do for you?” It’s a White guy standing out

there. And he says, “Is Leola here?” I said, “No, Leola’s not here. My mother’s

here, Mrs. Washington is here.” He said, “Tell Leola I’m out here to see her.” I

said, “I just told you. My mother’s here, her name is Mrs. Washington.” And my

mother heard me. And she says, “Look, I’ll be there in just a moment! Tell him I’ll AAHP 373; Washington; Page 21 be there in a minute.” And she went to the door. It was an insurance collection agency, selling my mother a life insurance policy for twenty-five cents a week. I said, “What does a twenty-five-cent-a-week life insurance policy buy you,

Momma?” It bought nothing. I think she had paid on that thing something like for ten years, twenty-five cents a week. I think it had a two hundred and fifty dollar face value if there’s a death. And take this and accumulate it over years, and hundreds of people, thousands of people; you can rip people off, and disrespectful, too. She chastised me, she said, “You have to be very careful how you talk to White folk, boy!” I said, “What do you mean?” “Now, I know you mean well. But you have to be careful. People could harm you.” And I didn’t understand this. I said, “No! You don’t come here and ask to speak to ‘Leola.’ You’re my mother. And I heard you say to him, ‘Mr. whoever.’ You don’t call him ‘Mister’ if he won’t call you ‘Missus’! You call him by his first name, or don’t call him anything, and you tell him not to call you by your first name!” And of course, she didn’t like that. “Your mouth’s going to get you in trouble.” I said, “I’m sorry. It’s just not going to happen.” And of course, you couldn’t go to the movies. You had a little hole in the wall for a movie. It was nothing. Then we got whatever was left over. The books that we had in school: last year’s graffiti from the kids who had the books in the White school. Books with the backs torn off, that we’re getting.

These are our books for next year. Little love notes on page 86 from Johnny to

Sarah. Some bit of graffiti in the back. And this is something I’m supposed to read out of? Desks carved up with somebody else’s graffiti. And we complained to the principal, and they said, “Well, they’re better desks than we had last year. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 22

And you can’t get everything at one time.” And then, when you see the—the one thing that just did bother me, and I won’t call the name—just the only one person really bothered me in high school. And that was the principal. He kowtowed to the White superintendent. I asked, “Well, don’t we have any Black superintendents? Don’t we have any Blacks ever come down here to check on our schools? Do we have any Blacks to go check on their schools?” “Well, no, we don’t have that. We don’t have that kind of stuff, yet.” They all knew. And they would use the word “yet,” often. And “yet” became a badge of hope to some of us. “Yet” meant it could come. It could be. Maybe you are the one to make it happen. Not yet. We don’t have this—yet. And you kept saying, “When is the ‘yet’ going to be fulfilled?” And so, in a way, we had a charge, all the time—even with the negative. The “yet” meant, you have a role to bring about that which has not yet become. So, yes. Very much cognizant of it. And very bitter about it. I was a very bitter young man. I was. I really was. It took me a long time to get over the hurt and the pain and the bitterness that I felt. At one point, this was revealed when I was at Florida Atlantic University. One of my professors invited my wife and me over for dinner, which we thought unusual, in the Boca Raton area. And he served us some cucumber soup. And cucumber soup is white. And when he put it before me, I asked what was it. He said, “Cucumber soup. It’s nice. Ever had cucumber soup before?” And before I realized it, I says, “I don’t eat anything white.” I didn’t eat mayonnaise—I’d hated it. I didn’t eat—I drank milk only because I was brought up on milk. But I developed a resentment for the symbol of whiteness. I really had. I said, “I don’t eat anything white.” And my wife kicked AAHP 373; Washington; Page 23 me under the table, as to say, “Don’t say things like that!” He said, “What was that?” I said, “No, nothing, I just, I don’t think I would like it.” He said, “Well, why don’t you just taste it?” “I don’t want it, thank you. I appreciate it, but no thank you.” Well, my wife ate it, and she said, “This cucumber soup was good.” And I said, “You know I don’t eat anything white.” She says, “You’ve got to get over that, Charles.” “When do they get over treating me the way I’m treated? I get over it when they get over it! Why don’t they stop? When they stop, I stop.” And so, I had to work on that. I really did. It took me years to move from that to the place where I am today, and all the things that have happened in my life, and the various people I’ve met—many of them who are White, many of them who are very decent human beings. And people whom I have very fond feelings of. But I’ll tell you, I developed defenses when I was young. There was a statement I used to use. It’s a ridiculous statement. “Never trust a White man—even if he is dead.”

What a ridiculous statement! But the finality of distrust was conveyed. In other words, “My distrust is so deep, caused by what you’ve done to me, and my parents, great grandparents’ grandparents, that even if you were to be certified as being dead, I do not trust the finding. I have to be cautious.” Now, that is not something that I did to me. That’s something that is done to me by the system.

So the system affects both of us. It affects Blacks, and it affects Whites. And we both go through this system that we could stop, if we ever decided to do that.

And I’ve had instances where I’ve seen it, where people decided not to do that, or appeared to not want to do that, and things appeared to be better, and they AAHP 373; Washington; Page 24

felt better about themselves and about their relations. But that’s probably enough

of the community and that aspect.

M: Yeah, that helps, though. I mean—one last question, I guess. In terms of—with

anger, sometimes, we get kind of fearless. Did you have a sense of the fear of

things that could happen, or did you have more of a sense of just the need to

change things, I guess?

W: I’d have to choose the latter. Because, for me, I had to do what I had to do to

change things. I could not live in Haines City as my mother had, and would go on

to live, or as some of my sisters did and continued to do, even through all of this

massive change. I had to get away. I had to leave it. I had to find—the world has

got to be better someplace. People are better someplace. Things are different,

someplace. And there are ways to make them different, some way. This cannot

be. When I would go clean up the White school, I had to get there by bicycle. And

I guess the distance that I rode had to be a total of—it was about four, four and a

half miles, each way. And I had to do that right after high school, and then clean

up, and then come back. And typically, on coming back, I’m driving through the

White neighborhood—that’s where the school is—and down the roads, highways,

to get back. And there were many, many days where cars of White teenagers

would pass me by and throw their soda pop cups that they had been drinking out

of, hit me with them, and call me “nigger.” “Get out of this neighborhood, nigger!

What are you doing here? I don’t want to see you again around here anymore!”

Well, I had a choice. That was my job. I needed the money. I had to go. But what

am I going to do? Am I not going to go? Am I going to call the police to say, “Your AAHP 373; Washington; Page 25

White boys are harassing me?” Give me a break! So you did what you had to do.

And you did it carefully, you did it with a sense of resolve, and you did it with a sense of escape. What if this happened? You always had to think through your mind, the scenarios. How do I deal with this, if that were to happen? How do I avoid this from happening? Where do I think this may occur? How do I avoid that place, and go this place? You just had to think strategically, and you had to do what you had to do. Water fountains, for example. I remember in Haines City, we’d go to the place to purchase food. [Indicates imaginary water fountains.]

“White Only.” “Colored.” The White-only fountain was mounted at the wall, that was reasonable for an average person to drink the water. And it was typically cold. [Brief confusion as automatic lights shut off.] The Colored fountain was either too tall, or too low. And the water wasn’t cold. Now, you’re approaching the water fountains. You are an African American male. Or African American, period.

You want some water. You want some cold water. You know that one of these fountains has cold water. You know one does not. You know one is inconveniently located, you know the other isn’t. Do you just voluntarily subject yourself to the inconvenience out of your fear? Well, it depends upon the magnitude of the fear, and its proximity. If there were a bunch of fools behind me with clubs in their hands, I’d either choose not to get the water, or I’d drink the water—depending on how thirsty I was—at the lower one, if I wanted to make sure that what I valued beyond myself, was greater than myself at the moment.

Otherwise, I drink the cold. And if nobody’s there, I’m going to drink the cold. And if somebody is there, but at a distance, no clubs, I’m going to drink the cold. If AAHP 373; Washington; Page 26

somebody is there in proximity, but just equal, one on one, I’m going to drink the

cold. And I’ve done that. And somebody would yell, “Nigger, don’t you see that

sign?” And I’d drink the water, and I’d go about my business. I don’t think I’m the

only person who did that. I think there are hundreds and thousands of people

who did that. Every day. Because they, too, were fed up with this kind of stuff.

And unfortunately, in many ways, we’re going through the same thing again. And

it saddens me greatly, an educated society as ours, as far as we’ve come—and

so much we have to be proud of. There’s nothing that this country ought to be

prouder of than what we have achieved since we have had President Obama as

president. It’s something for all Whites, all Blacks, all other ethnic groups, to be

proud of, because it says truly, in a land of equal opportunity, we can all be in the

highest position that we’ve got to offer. But yet, look at how we disrespect the

president.

M: It’s true. And, so you graduated in 1960. Did you go straight to college from

there, or—?

W: I went straight to community college. Straight to Ocala.

M: Okay. And that’s not just departing from what you said, but it returned me to it,

because 1960 was quite a moment.

W: Yes.

M: So, what drove you to—so you went to Central Florida Community College,

correct?

W: Oh, no. It was Hampton Junior College.

M: That’s what it was, yes. I’m sorry. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 27

W: Oh, it was a marvelous, fantastic institution! It was a wing built next to the high

school, that had, I think, six rooms to it. You went down the hallway, three rooms

on one side, three on the other. And you went down on the right side, there was

an administrative office. That was Hampton Junior College. While you had great

Central Florida Community College downtown, away from where we were. And

what it was, you put six little rooms added to the high school wing, you put a little

administrative office, give it a different entrance. You put a sign up—a very dinky

sign—and that was Hampton Junior College.

M: And was that your impression of it when you got there, or did you know where

you were—?

W: That was my impression when I got there. I says, “This is it?” It didn’t have—we

didn’t have anything but what I just described! I think, I don’t know where the

book store was in relationship to—the little administrative office had a little

meeting room for students, place for the bookkeeper, the registrar’s office was a

little office there, and there was the president’s office. And there was an outer

lobby. I really don’t remember. I think they must have brought the books and put

them in the outer area. I really don’t remember. But I do know you walked down

the hall, there were three classrooms on one side, three on the other. That was it!

You walked up the sidewalk, and now you were on Howard High School’s

campus. That’s what I remember.

M: So why did you decide to go there? Was that just—?

W: It was very simple. I told someone I would have gone to school to study the

mating habits of gnats on offseason, if that was the only way I went to school. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 28

There was no money for me to go to school. When I graduated from high school,

I graduated valedictorian. But, that didn’t mean a whole lot. We had the largest graduating class in the history of our school when I graduated. Thirty-five students. Thirty-five. I think I got a one hundred dollar scholarship when I graduated from high school. I had no money. My mother had no money. I didn’t have a father to have money to give me. I didn’t know where he was. My family had no money. I had no scholarships. And so, I had this one hundred dollars.

Someone said to me, “You know there’s a little”—it may have been Mrs. Vereen.

She says, “You know there’s a junior college in Ocala, Charles. You can’t afford to go to school anywhere else, why don’t you try going there? You ought to do something.” And I knew I had to do something. And while this is an interesting story, my wife didn’t believe it until she actually met the president of Hampton

Junior College. We called him “Papa Jack.” Dr. Jackson, I don’t remember Dr.

Jackson’s first name. You could easily find that out. He was a great fellow. But I told my mother I was going to go to junior college. Now, this is a bold, and you might say even—not idiotic, because I knew better—unwise thing to do. I packed up my little stuff, and a little suitcase that I had. It’s a brown suitcase. The little latch on it was broken, so I tied it with a belt. And it was one that I carried in one hand. That’s what I had. I used part of the money, that one hundred dollars, to get a couple of essentials, and to get the ticket to get to Ocala. When I got there,

I had not applied to go to school. I knew no one in Ocala. I went to one of those rooming houses that I think Ann Pinkston mentioned up on Broad Street or

Broadway. There was a little rooming house down on the corner, and I got a AAHP 373; Washington; Page 29 room there for a night. So by the time I got to college, back to the campus, I walked to the campus, carrying my bag. They told me it was only about a couple of miles down the road. “Just keep down this street, and you’ll see it on the left.”

So I was sweaty. Had this bag. I don’t think I had much more than enough to buy myself some lunch. I certainly had no money for another night. And this is the truth. When I got there, since I had not applied for school, and I knew no one, I said to Mrs. Hampton—she’s mentioned, L.R. Hampton’s wife. Mrs. Hampton was the secretary, and I said to Mrs. Hampton—I didn’t know she was Mrs.

Hampton at the time—I went in and I asked if I could see the president. And she asked, “Young man, do you have an appointment?” I said, “No, ma’am.” “What’s your name?” I told her. She said, “Well, I’m sorry! The president’s in a meeting all day today.” And I said, “Well, where’s the meeting, ma’am?” She said, “It’s here, but he’s going to be tied up all day.” So I had a problem. I said, “Well, I’ll wait.”

She said, “It’s going to be a mighty long wait!” I said, “That’s all right, I’ll wait.” So

I sat there. Lunchtime came, and she came out and got the lunch stuff, they took it in to this meeting and all of that. And she says, “Well, aren’t you going to go have lunch?” I said, “No ma’am, I’m not hungry.” I was starved. I waited. Two o’clock. Three o’clock. She says, “Well, the meeting’s about over, but you’ve been here a long time. He really has to go.” I said, “Ma’am, he’s got to come out of there sometime.” And so she says, “Let me go in and tell him that you’ve been here.” And she went in and told him why I was there. I needed to see him. And I remember when he walked out. He walked out and said, “Hey, boy! I understand you’ve been out here all day waiting for me. What’s your name?” I told him. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 30

Robust fellow. Bowlegged. He said, “Mrs. Hampton tells me you say you want to go to junior college. Well, have you applied?” I said, “No, sir.” “Yeah? What do you mean you haven’t applied? Don’t you know you have to apply to go to school, boy?” I said, “Yes, sir.” “Well, why haven’t you applied?” “I didn’t have time, because I just decided.” He said, “Well, you’ve been out here all day?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, you either want to go to school, or you the biggest fool I ever met!” [Laughter] I said, “Sir, I guarantee you, I’m not a fool.” “Come on in here, boy!” I went in. We talked for a while. And that very day, he got on the telephone, and he called one of his friends and a teacher, a Mrs. Mary Sparks, explained to Mrs. Sparks that he had this—he referred to me as a fool a second time. I reminded him I was not a fool and I did not appreciate that. He says, “I got this fool in my office who want to go to school that bad he sits out here all day long, and he ain’t got no money! He doesn’t have a place to go! He doesn’t know anybody! You ever heard of such a thing?” And of course, she apparently said

“No.” He convinced her to allow me—until he worked something out, if I could at least stay at her place for maybe a couple days, but certainly for the night. I never met this woman before. She drove her car out to the junior college. I met her. She was a very fine woman. She agreed that I could come stay with her.

She says, “Now, I have a small house. Just me and my husband. I have a son.

And we have just a small house, two bedrooms. And you might have to share my son’s bedroom tonight. He’s not here, he’ll be home from college.” And I thanked her very much. And she asked had I had anything to eat? I said, “No ma’am.”

And she gave me that motherly, with disgust look, like, “I can’t believe this! Who AAHP 373; Washington; Page 31

raised you, boy?” But with compassion. She went home. She prepared a meal.

She introduced me to her husband. I stayed there that night. By the next day,

Papa Jack, Mr. Jackson, had arranged to get applications for admission for me to

fill out, an application for the NDEA loan—this is during the time of the Sputnik

race, and we had money for people who wanted to study. And he managed over

the next twenty-four hours to get the loan application approved to the point that

he could commit to my getting admitted to school. Made some telephone calls

and found out who I was. All the essentials for me to get admitted to this school.

Asked me what could I do? And here, how Mrs. Jackson comes back. I said,

“Well, I know how to type.” [Laughter] I said, “I know how to type”—and this is

how Coach came back—“and I can play basketball.” He said, “You’re too small to

play basketball, and I don’t believe you can type!” [Laughter] So I said, “I can play

basketball, and I can type.” He said, “All right, I’ll make you a deal. If you make

the basketball team, you don’t have to play—because I don’t think you’re going to

play! But if you can make the team, that’ll take care of part of your tuition costs.

We’ll pay for it. And you’ll work in the office of Mrs. Hampton. If she says you can

type, you can work here, and work off part of that until your student loan gets

here. And when your loan gets here, we’ll use part of that money to pay for your

living with Mrs. Sparks.” I said, “I think that’s a wonderful plan. I really appreciate

you.” He said, “Boy, I just don’t know about you! I don’t know!” And sure enough,

I did the typing, I made the basketball team—I didn’t get a chance to play that

much, but I did make it! [Laughter] And so that was a start.

M: Wow. That’s quite a story! [Laughter] AAHP 373; Washington; Page 32

W: Life is full of these stories. I mean, it’s amazing. But that’s how I got started.

M: Wow. So, once you were there, did you—I mean, what were you learning about

there? What were the classes like?

W: Well, I wasn’t sure what I was going to major in. I only wanted to go to school.

And I think I started out saying I was going to be a political science major. But I

was really interested in math because of, here, the coach again. He taught me

math. But I ran into a math teacher at Hampton Junior College that discouraged

me from math as much as anybody could discourage anybody from anything. I

don’t think it was in his intent. He was just so bright, and he should not have

been in community college. Not in my estimation. And having been in a university

setting, he should really have been in a pure math department, where you’re

really talking about math as a language. I think the first day of class, he went up

and he drew this orbital route of Sputnik around in outer space and back, and

threw up the formula. And he said something to us like, “If they can do it, you can

do it!” And he was immune to your very pedestrian question, like, “Before you go

there—before we get that far—could you just explain the assignment for next

week?” [Laughter] And so, I struggled with that first class. And I said, “I don’t

think that’s for me!” [Laughter] So, I went on with that. But there were other things

working in the background. The point is, that all of these things tend to work on a

sub-rosa level. They’re influencing your life every day, and they don’t go away.

Because the conditions at home were still there. I’m thinking about my mom,

thinking about my sisters and brothers, and their needs, and the economics

thereof, and how I would take NDEA loan money, and I would send it home. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 33

Because they needed it, and I would do without. And that wasn’t working. That just wasn’t working. And so, I had to decide to do something else. And at the end of the first year, I volunteered to go to the Service. I volunteered to go to the

Army. And I was in the Service for thirteen months, and then I came back to

Ocala, and that was in the summer of [19]62. Because [19]60-[19]6, [19]61-

[19]62—yeah, summer of 1962. And that, apparently, is when I was most involved in the initiative in the Civil Rights Movement of Ocala. You know, I don’t know what the reason is for the confluence of nonsupporting events in my talking to you about this. I have at home a binder where I had gone to Ocala sometime, my wife and I, and we’d gone to the Ocala Star-Banner, their archives, and made copies of all of the articles they had written during that period of time, where they had photographs of some of us being arrested, and the names of the kids who were participating and all of that. A few quotes about things that I said at a Mass

Meeting. And I had said to myself, “If Ryan gave me his interviews, and I take these, it would help me put myself back into a context that I would remember all of this stuff.” Now, I know when I get back home, I’m going to go right to the binder. I searched high and low for about eight hours before leaving, and nowhere could I find the binder. They’re all in with leaf protectors, and I’ll guarantee you when I walk back, I’ll walk in, and I’ll pull that off a shelf. But it just,

I could not find it. So I said to my wife this morning, “I’m not prepared for this interview. I have no idea how I’m going to access this stuff.” But anyway, it must have been the summer of [19]62, because I know that it was the summer of

[19]63—[19]62-[19]63—it was the fall of [19]63 that I went to Florida A&M. And I AAHP 373; Washington; Page 34

remember that distinctively because that’s when Kennedy was assassinated. I

remember walking on the campus there that day. So, it was the summer of

[19]62 that this involvement with Frank took place. I tried my very best to try to

remember, where did I first meet Frank? And I could not. I could not remember.

Now, this is hard for me, because Frank was a real good friend.

[Break in recording]

M: It’s—

W: Go right ahead.

M: Okay.

W: I said I don’t remember where we first met, nor our first conversation. I just

remember certain things. I had met—no, I had not yet met his brother. I met his

brother through him, because his brother, Fred Pinkston, whom Ann

mentioned—I think Fred is the second-oldest of his father’s children, Wendell is

the oldest—Fred was the best man at my wedding, and I think I met him after this

time period. But at some point, Frank and I obviously met each other. I was in

Junior College, and he taught at Howard. So, we were in the same proximity.

And I did not go to his father’s church, I went to another church. But somehow, I

must have—he and I must have had a conversation, because it ended up that I

was serving as the president of the NAACP Youth Council. And he was, of

course, the president of the NAACP—I don’t know his official title, he may have

even had a state role. I don’t know his official title. But, somehow, we got

together. I remember only small bits here and there. I remember Ann’s talking

about Dana Swan from the University of Florida, and her referencing the AAHP 373; Washington; Page 35 basement of the old church of Covenant. And I remember there where we had some rehearsal sessions about the protest demonstration, and there were one or two White students there. Apparently, Dana was one of those, because I think

Frank felt that we need to have it real as possible, so we need to have some

Whites to participate. And Dana may have been one of those students who felt inclined to participate, and was there, and given what Ann has said about when

Dana came onto the scene there, it appeared as though that probably may have been Dana, and/or some others whom I don’t remember. But you have to remember, there’s a shield in my mind against remembering. The feeling was so strong in me—and I was not sure I could do this. Because Frank was all about nonviolence. And I must admit, I did not grow up with the notion that if you slapped me I was going to, in a very warmly manner, just turn the other cheek.

[Laughter] Rather, I think my orientation was that if you slap me, you had better make sure it is a very, very hard slap. Because once I recovered, I will let you know that you had been there! So, I’m so glad that I was able to do this, because we had to have these training sessions about, what do you do if somebody walked up to you and spat in your face, or called you “nigger,” or spoke about your parents in a demeaning way, or slapped you on the back, et cetera. I am told by Frank’s daughter that there is an entry in Frank’s journal—which I have not seen—that says something to the effect that while we were protesting, a car ran off the curb and hit me, and they took me to the hospital, but I was all right.

And she said, “Don’t you remember that?” And my response was, “No. I don’t remember it.” I don’t. Anything that really harmed me, I wanted to forget it, AAHP 373; Washington; Page 36 because if I remembered it, it says, “Do something about it!” Or, “Why didn’t you do something about it?” Or, “How could you let this have happened to you?” But if I kept it subdued, it means, “Get over it, move on. Make the next day of your life better than yesterday. And make sure whatever may have happened to you yesterday not happen to you today.” And that served me well. But as we have these kinds of conversations, I think—you’re right—the past dredges up a lot of stuff, and that includes emotions, and sometimes regret, sometimes joy, sometimes peace. But anyway, we hit it off. I liked Frank. He was an athlete. He was a strong, healthy, robust young man. He wasn’t a wimp. He could tell you what he thought. He could tell you with respect. And I understood that from his father. I grew fond of his father. And his father was a quiet man. Perhaps the most loving, compassionate, quiet, peaceful man I’ve ever met. And part of that rubbed off on Frank, but yet there was a bit about Frank that was a bit more sturdy and robust. “Yes, I am peaceful, I am calm. But I would add forceful. We don’t want this to continue. It can’t continue.” And so, he spoke in a forceful way when he needed to speak in a forceful way. And yet he spoke in a diplomatic way when he sought to try to get a owner of a store to understand why you had to think about the economics of continuing to deny employment to Black children and Black adults, when they are consuming your goods and products. Do you really think they will continue to do that forever? Do you not think that they would pretty much not figure out a way to withhold from you that which you need in order for you to be in business, when you continue to give them an opportunity to have economic well-being? It was that strategic thinking, that ability to appeal to AAHP 373; Washington; Page 37

your ignorance. To make sure you saw some light. To know that you had some

brightness, that he was capable of doing. And so, we hit it off in an interesting

way, and we did what we did.

M: And so you’re speaking of Frank’s ability to talk to people one-on-one. Is there

anything you could comment on in terms of—the most universal thing I’ve heard

about him was just his public speaking capacity. That he was really able to just

fire people up. Do you—yeah.

W: Well, yes. But firing people up was not enough. It’s not the public speaking piece

that really wins the prize. The public speaking piece helps to open your eyes. It

helps to empower you with a sense of presence and awareness of your own

worth. And helping you to claim it, and to buy into it. But if you just stop there, it’s

insufficient. Frank’s capacity went beyond that, and the same with Dr. King, and

Dr. Abernathy. I was there when Abernathy spoke that night. And that one of the

articles that I had in that little piece spoke of that, that I was speaking just after

Abernathy or before Abernathy—probably before, so he was the main speaker.

But the ability to get you to see, yes, things are bad, and there is a pattern of life

here that affects you negatively, and I understand that you realize that should

you come and go on a picket line, or participate in a protest demonstration, and

you’re earning your money from Mr. Johnson, who happens to be part of the

White Citizens’ Council, where Mr. Peterson, who owns the drug store, is also a

member, that when they talk, you may not have a job next week. Frank

understood that. He wanted them to understand that he understood that. But he

wanted them also to understand that at some point, if you can’t do that, you’ve AAHP 373; Washington; Page 38 got to support your children who are brave enough to do something. And you must not demean them for doing that. You must be there to be behind them and support them when they go participate in these things. Because they’re doing it because you can’t do it. Or, if you are tired of this, and you believe that God will imbue you with other skills and abilities, and will make a way, as you sing in your songs—you know, He’s a waymaker. Well, if He’s a waymaker, why don’t you give Him a chance to make a way? If He is a provider, let Him provide for you.

But He can’t provide if you don’t let Him. So, it’s trying to get them to move from that, to their self-empowerment and self-action. But even that wasn’t enough.

And he understood that. Even that isn’t enough. Because that’s pressing the wall.

There is the wall. It’s already solid. It’s there. You’re not going to move it unless it is resilient. Unless it is pliable. Unless it is give-way-able. Unless it can be broken through. Or unless that wall suddenly turns into a door. And he thought—and I agreed with him, after a while—it’s better that that apparently solid wall would be more closely inspected. And we look and say, “Hey, there’s a seam here. It goes all the way up over here. It could be that there are hinges over here! How do we unlock that door, that doesn’t appear to be a door? We see no handle on the outside. So the handle must be on the inside. And if it’s on the inside, it belongs to the wall, and not to us. So we must get behind the wall, into the head of the person who owns the wall, so they can unlock the door from the inside. So when you’re talking to people in negotiations in a store, it’s a different Frank. It’s a

Frank who said, “Sir, but have you considered the following? Have you given a thought to this? Do you realize if you considered A, the results can be B? And if AAHP 373; Washington; Page 39 the results are B, the returns C are marginally greater than your current returns if you continue to do what you’re doing. Now, there are risks to you. But let’s look at those risks.” It’s that kind of thing that I had the opportunity of seeing Frank do, because he and I would go—there may have been someone else that went with us a couple of times with these discussions. And remember, that was a short time period. This is between the summer of [19]62 to the summer of [19]63. And he’s teaching. And I’m in school. And we’re trying to do all of this stuff, and a lot of it’s taking place in the summer. But then you also had to do some of this discussion and talking with people. So, Frank was multifaceted. Yes, he was powerful in speaking, a great motivator. I think one of your questions you asked

Ann was how she’d contrast her father with her brother, and did he get this from his father? And I think she says something to the effect that there was a difference. That her father’s sermons were really scripturally-based. He spoke about what thus saith the scriptures, the Holy scriptures. What is the will of God in our lives? And he preached that, and tried to appeal to the common core of decency in all men, White or Black. And see if you can’t live up to that high standard. And would occasionally refer to our lives today. And Frank’s job, and difference was, not only did he use the scripture, but he infused the scriptures with day-to-day applications, and contradictions. If the scriptures say thou shall love thy neighbors thyself, how are you defining your neighbor? Is it the White guy who lives next to you, goes to your same church, and with whose kids your kids play? The guy at your local club, that goes where you go? Is that your neighbor? Or is your neighbor someone beyond your neighborhood? Did the AAHP 373; Washington; Page 40

Bible say that? The Bible didn’t say that, did it? It says “love your neighbor.” So

that means you must make the decision as to who is your neighbor. And what if

you’re wrong? What if you conclude that your neighbor is just that person around

you, and that’s not what God meant anyway? Something much, much broader.

And you’ve missed the whole thing! And you think you’ve lived your whole life

loving your neighbor. And what you really did is, you’ve lived your whole life not

even coming in contact with your neighbor, meaning the broader community. So

it was his job to do that for a Black community, primarily, at Mass Meetings; but

he can’t preach a sermon like that at a one-on-one meeting, at a White

negotiating session. He must find other ways to say the same thing. Because

many of the racist bigots proclaimed to be staunch Christians, and many today

still do! Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in the United States! We

are so righteously, hellishly sinful. And we’re all gonna to go to Heaven! And I

sometimes—I mean, I’m an ordained minister. And I ask God, “Do I really want to

go to Heaven, Lord? If all these people are going to be there, who say they’re

Christian, do I really want to go? Help me to understand that! Because if the

answer is ‘yes,’ I don’t know whether I want to go!” [Laughter] Think about it! The

same hellish, segregationist, bigoted people—White or Black—they’re going to

be the same people there? Then send me someplace else! I want to go to Las

Vegas! [Laughter] Sorry.

M: Oh, yeah. No, it’s understandable. So, Frank had a tendency in public speaking

to use the Bible to challenge people, is what it sounds like. Not just to—I don’t AAHP 373; Washington; Page 41

know exactly how to—but yeah, I mean, he used, it sounds like, some of his

pedagogical acumen to kind of get people to think more deeply about things.

W: Indeed. Think more deeply and more critically about things, starting with yourself.

Because after all, it’s the African American who needed change immediately.

Been waiting for how long, Lord, how long? And the prayers or songs—God will

provide. Leaning on the everlasting arms. Frank’s challenge was to say, “Lean

where you must lean. But stand up and move where you must stand up and

move.” Have faith of the provision being there, when you cannot provide. But

where you’ve got the opportunity to provide, provide. When you want to be taken

across the Jordan, don’t rely upon a limousine to come pick you up. You can

walk across the Jordan, too. It’s not a solo act. It’s not God’s burden to just do

this all for you. You’ve got a burden, too. But while you’ve got this burden over

here, you’ve got to move toward action and engagement. God understands that

you’ve got a chasm to cross. You’ve got a bridge that needs to be built. You’ve

got a deep valley that you want to go over. You’ve got to get from here to there,

and that’s where you can’t do it by yourself. But even if the road were completely

smooth, and you got to the other side, there may be an iron gate. And there’s a

lock on it. And there’s a key to the lock, and it’s owned by the guy standing on

the other side of the gate. Now, it doesn’t matter just how strong, how robust,

how articulate, how experienced you are, how learned you are. When you get to

the iron gate, and it’s locked, and the key is on the other side, and the guy on the

other side is a bigot, he’s a racist, sometimes he’s just downright stupid—which

is worse, in my opinion, than some of the other ills. Just to be downright stupid! AAHP 373; Washington; Page 42

It’s one thing to be ignorant and not know. But to know, and then just not act, and just insist on doing that which produces nothing but ill will—just plain stupid.

Somebody’s got to help you unlock that guy’s state of mind, and you’ve got to be the person to convince folks not just how to do it in your sermon, but every day. I mean, Frank has to do it when he’s having a negotiation. But what, when you’re there by yourself? One of the things that I could never understand: Blacks were, for years, resigned to domestic work. When the movie The Help came out, I had mixed feelings. Part of me was so angry. How could this woman get this book published, get this movie contract, make all these millions, when Black people could have written that story, and it wouldn’t have been even published, or it wouldn’t have been looked at as a movie-potential contract at all? And it’s still their story! And when you think about how Black women had to get up, catch those buses early in the morning, put on those white little uniforms as if they were nurses, go into people’s homes, “Yes ma’am” and “Yes sir” all day long, take care of White babies, feed them, change the diapers, give them motivation to be good people, and they grew up themselves to be racist against them—how could you have people subjected to that, and go through that, and try to make a life for their own kids, for that whole system? So his sermons had to be something that appealed to you not just for Sunday morning. What are you going to do Monday morning, where you are Mr. Charlie’s job. And Mr. Charlie comes up again and calls you “boy”? “Hey boy, come on over here.” You’ve been working with this guy for ten years. And he knows your name. And he refers to your father and your mother as Annie and Johnny, and pats you on the back and AAHP 373; Washington; Page 43 makes you think that he loves you. Says these little nice things to you, and sticks it to you—you’re making less than the minimum wage. What do you say to him? I love that line where, somewhere, somebody quoted Reverend Pinkston having said to someone, he said, “But for you, sir, I am Reverend Oliver Van Pinkston.”

In other words, “I don’t know what you think of me. I don’t know what you tell everybody else. But this is who I am to you. And if you want to converse with me, this is who I am.” It took, and it takes, and it will continue to take that kind of individual responsibility in the moment with persons. I’ve had even, as late as my years at George Washington University, I had to tell her—the university marshal at GW one day prior to graduation, he’s having a meeting with all the department chairs, and I’m a department chair. And in the meeting, he referred to every department chair in that meeting while giving his briefing, as Dr. X, Dr. Y, Dr. P,

Dr. Q., and when he got to me, “And Charles. And this is where you folks will be lined up.” And I said, “Just a moment.” “Is there a problem?” I says, “Yes, there is.” “What is the problem?” Said, “Do you realize what you just did?” He says, “Of course. I just gave you some fundamental instructions.” I said, “No, no, no. You just disrespected me and demeaned me in the presence of my peers. You are my peer, Mr. Marshal. You have a PhD, earned from Yale University. I have a

PhD earned from Syracuse University. I spent as much time as you did, I studied as hard as you did, I read as much as you did—probably in a different discipline—and yet, around this table, you referred to everybody as Dr. This, Dr.

That, Dr. That, and you come to me and you say ‘Charles’?” I said, “Don’t let it happen again!” Well, he bristled. “Are you trying to cause trouble?” “Yes. Do not AAHP 373; Washington; Page 44

let it happen again!” “All right. We’ll go on.” Well, after the meeting, he came to

me and said, “I’m sorry I disrespected you.” I said, “Did you not know it? Did you

not see it? Could you not understand it? Why is it so hard for you to see, that if

you’ve got all the guys around this table with PhDs”—one of the thing I liked

about you, you never bothered to advance yourself with your pedigree. When

you talked to me, you said who you were. And that’s right. I’m Charles

Washington. What you’ve earned is different than who you are. And I said to him,

“We do this all the time. And we’ve got to stop it.” So, that’s what I’m talking

about with Frank, and with people, both on the White side of the equation, and on

the Black side of the equation.

M: Okay. And is there anything else you could add about his father, too, in terms

of—people have told me he sort of gets, maybe gets less credit because he was

not—Frank was obviously out and active, and getting involved in things, but it’s

easy to overlook the fact that O.V. Pinkston was the only pastor in Ocala willing

to host this entire movement. And my impression is, it’s sort of characteristic of

him as that sort of quiet, strong person; that he just kind of let people in, and

people overlook the fact that that was quite a decision to make already.

W: That’s right. I’m at a disadvantage in speaking in depth about him, because I

didn’t grow up in Ocala. I wasn’t educated in Ocala, I did not spend my years

going to his church in Ocala, and I was there for a short period of time. But

wonderful experiences. He and I got to know each other because I had interest in

ministry, too—and have. What I observed about him was that, I think Oliver Van

Pinkston could have been a discipline of Jesus’s in any place. Because I don’t AAHP 373; Washington; Page 45 think that he would say, “I can’t preach to the Romans, I can only preach to the

Jews.” I mean, if he were a Jew, I don’t think he would say, as Paul didn’t say, “I don’t think I can just preach to the Jews.” Or, “I can just preach to the Jews, because I know the Jewish faith. I can’t preach to the Gentiles.” I don’t think he could say, “I can only preach to the Greeks and the Romans, but no other

Gentiles.” I think he would say, “Good is good. And bad is bad. But you don’t understand good nor bad, until you understand the meaning of good and the meaning of bad. And how either of these have synonyms. And how if you take each of the synonyms for each of these terms, they are applicable to any environment, to any circumstance, and to any people. All you have to be is in a circumstance, and be of a people. And thus, the message I give to you is one that is applicable. So whether you are a White man or a Black man, you are capable of doing what is righteous. What is reasonable. What is non-sinful. What is right. And here are some things that you can do. And you are capable of determining when you are not doing those things. And so you are making a conscious decision, my good brother.” Even if he’s talking to a racist. “You’re making a conscious decision, my good brother. I’m not distancing you.” Not like what I probably would have said in those days. I think—thank God—I think I’ve moved to the point where I can now say “My brother.” I would have said, “You racist.” “But it’s not mine to judge you. You have already judged yourself. You know who you are, if you have a standard against which to measure your behavior and your thoughts. Now, as a man thinketh, so is he. Do you think, sir?

My good man? Have you thought on these things? And if you did, and if you AAHP 373; Washington; Page 46 decided to dismiss them, you chose to dismiss them.” That’s what the father

Pinkston, that’s what Oliver Van Pinkston, would do in my opinion. What I’ve heard him—the great letter in the Bible, in the book of Philemon. It’s interesting: he called it PHY-LEE-MUHN, I called it PHIH-LEH-MAHN. He says, “Well, I’ve always called that book ‘Philemon.’” I said, “Well, sir, whatever you call that book, that’s what that book is in your presence.” And since I wasn’t there, it is as much

PHY-LEE-MUHN as it is PHIH-LEH-MAHN. And he said, in this great letter— you’re talking about Paul writing a letter to someone about his previous possession. Onesimus was the slave of this individual. He’s writing a persuasive letter. He’s saying, “I want you to accept him back—not as your property, not as your slave, but as your brother.” Now, that’s not any different. That’s not any different from what we’re saying every Sunday. You know? Jesus says, “Greater love has no”—first he says—“I’m going to give you another Commandment. The interesting thing about this one, that it’s not grievous. It’s not burdensome. Not heavy. It’s a simple one. Love your brother as you love yourself. Greater love hath no man than this. And then there’s a kicker: that a man lay down his life for his friend. You’re my friend—if you keep my commandments.” All the ifs, and the ands, are missing. And he goes, “Oh, I love everybody. I just love y’all.” I’ve heard some of the greatest racists: “I love you folks! You Black people have been so nice to us! You been a great community, and we love you, all of you.” And I’m sitting there saying, “Don’t give me that crap. Do you even know what love is?”

Van Pinkston—Oliver Van Pinkston—wanted people to tap into the purity of love.

And I think he believed—as you read in 1 Corinthians, about what love is all AAHP 373; Washington; Page 47 about—that love has courage. He had courage. “Why should I be afraid to have my son, and my community, meet to talk about their rights?” I was offended when someone asked me—and they didn’t understand it—“Weren’t you just happy when they passed the Civil Rights acts that they passed?” The Voting Rights Act, and Housing Act. I said I was glad it happened, but I was still annoyed, I was still frustrated. “Why?” I said, “What gives you the right to pass a bill giving me my rights? When did you own them? Who gave you the right to presume that you had the power to grant to me my rights? When you say you believe in the fundamental documents that you read, what does ‘inalienable’ mean to you?”

They’ll say “unalienable,” often misquoted. “Inalienable rights. Part and parcel of the entity. You cannot separate it. And you pass a bill, and you tell me I can buy a house where I want to—I’m supposed to praise you, and say great things about you? Don’t offend me!” I mean, it’s the kind of passion that I state that is a part of the naturalness of Oliver Van Pinkston’s persona when he preached. He preached quietly. He really did. When he raised his voice, it was not like some of the ministers you hear today. Some of their ranting and raving, you can’t tell what it is that’s important, what isn’t. Everything’s high-pitched, and they’re asking you to give God praise here, and hold your hand this—“Listen to me!” Pinkston is saying, “Listen to me. Lend me your ear.” And that’s what made this man so important. I don’t think he would want you to say, “You did all this stuff.” Because his position would be, “I did what I think the Lord wanted me to do. And while I respect your opinion, young man, I respect God’s opinion greater. And I think if I AAHP 373; Washington; Page 48

did what He wanted me to do—and I’m never satisfied that I’ve done everything

He wanted me to do, I’ve always done the best I could—then I’m happy.”

M: An extraordinary guy. So, that kind of—it did take a lot of strength, though. I

mean, you speak of him finding the courage, that love demands courage.

W: Yes.

M: But—you know about the Hunting and Fishing Club, I assume.

W: Oh, yes.

M: And so, there was—

W: He was not a fool. [Laughter] He’d love you, and he had strength, but—but “I’m

not a fool!” I think about, there’s this great battle, I understand, in the Old

Testament, where Moses is supposed to have his arms raised up in aid. And as

long as the arms are up, the battle is going to go in the way of the Israelites.

Now, if you understand that your arms need to be raised up, and you know

you’re getting tired, and you got somebody standing there next to you, wouldn’t

you want them to help you raise your arm up? I mean, “I’m loving you, but I’m not

a fool.” I think the Hunting and Fishing Club probably took it upon themselves to

say, “You know, Reverend Pinkston, I know you may not want us to do this, but

we need to protect you. We think it’s the right thing to do.” And he would probably

have said to him—I don’t know—“You do what you have to, but we’re not here to

hurt anybody. If we can be protected without anybody getting hurt, that is what I

would desire.” So that’s why I think that Alfred, who was the musical genius in

that family, I think Alfred is the one who rigged up all those little things around the

property so you tripped one wire, the lights came on and all the noise. I mean, he AAHP 373; Washington; Page 49 was just a musical genius. And his whole family has these very bright people.

And so, I think they had to get it from someplace. And so, his quiet strength was not without a sense of reasonableness. And it was not foolishly ignorant of possibilities. Yeah. But again, I’m only giving you my impression of him. If I lived in his household, lived around him longer, I would have a better perspective. But the perspective I have is sufficient for me. That’s what I got from this quiet, strong, loving, sensible man who made it possible for his church to be used where there were clear threats. I remember one Mass Meeting where we had some—out there on the cars, there were guys, we were told---that were some

White guys, they were either from the White Citizen’s Council, or maybe from the

Klan—not too distant from the church. They were listening to see what we said. I remember when Frank and I visited with the FBI agents in a government building.

And we were discussing some issues that we were concerned about. Frank was making the approach that his father would take, in my opinion. That is, you presume that you can appeal to people’s reasonableness. And that even a racist, in the presence of reason and logic, could see that—whether he or she embraced it or not. And I’m learning. Because I’m the other side. I’m thinking, “I don’t care what you say, they’re going to tell you whatever they think you want to hear. And they’re going to do whatever it is they want to do.” They’re going to say, “Yes, Reverend Pinkston, sir, we understand your point of view, and you make a good point. We’re going to put somebody on that, and the boys are going to make sure nothing happen to you guys.” And I’m saying, those are some of the same guys who meet tonight and say, “Here’s what I told him, and here’s AAHP 373; Washington; Page 50

what you guys can do if you decide to do something. Just don’t let us know

anything about it.” I was never inclined to believe much of what I heard in those

discussions. But I’m thankful that I had a guy who knew how to parse that, how to

decide what to believe and what not. And I learned from that. But I’m still

guarded.

M: Well, that’s the—I mean, that’s one of those—That’s the thing about the Klan,

about White Citizens’ Councils, especially—because, you know, I teach a lot of

undergraduates now, and they think of them as some kind of fringe extremist

group. But it’s really, it was mostly—the whole point of having the tip of that

iceberg was so everyone knew they didn’t know how deep it went. Did you see

much of the White Citizen’s Council, or what was your impression of them at that

time?

W: I didn’t. The only violence that I saw was—that I was aware of—is, I was here

when Dr. L. R. Hampton’s home was shot into. And that night when Abernathy

were here, and we were concerned. And I think there was an incident that

occurred somewhere on the Pinkston property—I’m not sure what it was—that

they had to, the Hunting and Fishing Club sort of put an end to. I don’t know any

of the real facts. But I never saw the visible manifestation other than the Whites

that were out on some cars, in a car, on that one particular night. It may have

been a different night, but I remember it appeared to have been that night.

Because we’re getting close, now. You’re getting one of the chieftains of Martin

Luther King here, Reverend Ralph Abernathy. And it’s an interesting thing how

life takes its interesting twists and turns. I’m currently a member of a church in AAHP 373; Washington; Page 51

which one of our members is Mrs. Abernathy. And I tend to see her quite often in

church. Very nice lady. And it’s amazing how well she looks. And how bright she

is. I never thought that I’d have the opportunity to worship with the very same

lady whose husband was such an icon during the period of time of my growing

up. So. I don’t know, I didn’t see any of those other manifestations, and I’m glad I

didn’t.

M: So you didn’t have any confrontations—or, many confrontations.

W: No. No. If I did, I don’t remember any. Now, it may have been that things got

heated up after the summer of [19]62, because we’d already done some protest

demonstrations, some sit-ins. We’d been thrown in jail. Frank and I did spend a

night in jail. And I suppose there may have been more after that, but you may on

some occasion spend a little time at the Ocala Star-Banner, and I would dig up

those articles if I were you. We just spent half of one day there. I thought I’d

spend more time there. And also the Orlando Sentinel, which did a better

coverage, I think, sometimes, than did the Ocala Star-Banner. Because I

remember one photograph of kids getting in and out of the paddy wagon after the

arrest. But no, I didn’t see or experience any of the overt manifestations of the

Klan, or the White Citizens’ Council. But that did not mean that I didn’t think it

was there. I was very cognizant of the presence thereof. What used to get me is

how a man could sit across the table from you, and look at you squarely in the

eye, and just overtly speak a lie. And warm it up with a smile. And dare to shake

your hand. It’s just so offensive. Tell me it right out, what you think, and let us

draw the line! Let me tell you what I think, and let you know what consequences AAHP 373; Washington; Page 52

are if we do these kinds of things to each other. Because you can’t just harm me,

and it never affects you or your life in any way. Ultimately, you will pay a price.

So, we can avoid it now, or you can take your chances—but somehow, you’re

going to pay the price.

M: If I could ask a little more about—do you remember much about Abernathy’s

meeting? Or, Abernathy’s visit. Do you remember much of what he spoke about,

or what that experience was like?

W: I knew you were going to ask me, that’s why I searched so hard for that article.

And I didn’t find it. But I do remember the night he came. And I guess all I can

say is that his presentation had to have been in the vein of helping the people in

Ocala to understand that this struggle was not an isolated struggle. The kind of

coverage we’re getting now on these issues, and with the presence of police

officers’ dashcams and people’s iPhones, that’s not what we had then. And if you

could get just a little blurb written in the newspaper at that time, that was an

accomplishment. Getting some national coverage of a little town like Ocala was

not going to be something that was going to be taking place very easily. And

even with Abernathy’s presence here, it’s not going to help those who are against

your cause to write much about what he said in the newspaper. ‘An outside

rabble-rouser come into town, trying to stir up our good Black folks’ is likely to be

the kind of thing you’re going to hear. And as I recall the article that I read, I don’t

remember it really discussing the substance of his presentation. But I can

imagine the context we were in—given the location, the setting, the size, the

timing—it would be more of that, of putting our effort in the context of a larger AAHP 373; Washington; Page 53

effort, and that there is out there assistance and help that could come to the

community as it needed it in whatever manner that the organizations could. And I

think that would have been a vague statement because what could be the

specific manner? One of the major issues was that of legal council should you

get arrested. The other is that of your needing people to help you understand

how to do these kinds of things. And therein you had the coordination that had to

come between the NAACP, CORE, and SNCC. And you’ve got all the other

fringe elements out there. If you were part of that movement, you could not be

ignorant of Malcolm X. You could not dismiss James Farmer. You had to

embrace aspects of every point of view. Because without Malcolm, there could

not have been a King. Without King, there would not have been a relevant

Malcolm. And you could do that for all of them. H. Rap Brown, all of those. We

were living in the same period of time. And so—some older, more experienced

than others. And you have to be aware of what’s going on, and try to draw from

these various groups to try to do what you’re doing, and I think somebody like

Ralph Abernathy had a much broader perspective than any of us. And his

presentation would likely have been one for contextualizing what we’re doing,

and maintaining a sense of encouragement. That you’re not in this alone.

M: Did you have—did you feel a strong connection to the other movements going on

nationally? Were you following them, or were people mostly focused on Ocala?

W: I think, when I was involved in 1962-[19]63, it was all locally-focused. We were

just trying to figure out, “How do we do what we need to do?” None of us had

done a protest demonstration. None of us had had a sit-in before. We, of course, AAHP 373; Washington; Page 54 had to draw upon—I’m sure we may have benefitted from some knowledge

Frank had about techniques from CORE. And the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee’s activities. Because it had been the sit-ins elsewhere, and we would learn from that. Especially what kind of decorum, and what do you say when you sit down? What can you anticipate someone saying to you?

Making sure you had money so that you don’t get arrested for loitering, vagrancy.

When we did the protest demonstrations, made sure our signs had what we were saying on them, make sure we walked on that part of the curb that we ought to walk on. Don’t block the active movement of people on the sidewalk. You want to turn, you go down the other way, wait until the people coming by you turn around. Because the whole idea was to arrest you for anything. And I think we were arrested for, if I recall—and I know this is in one of the articles, and I had to write this stuff down for so many years, it really angered me—we were arrested for protesting with illegally-published signs. I think it was something to that effect.

That we did not have, on all of the signs, maybe the names and addresses of folks like Frank and me. Which is—you know, “Let us know where you live. We want to come bomb your house” or something. “We’re so stupid that we need to give you that information, and the law doesn’t require it. And we’re going to arrest you if you don’t. And we’re going to make your life miserable for as many years as we can, because you’re young. You want to get a job, you’re going to have to”—the questioners ask you, “Have you ever been arrested?” I have to write down a “Yes.” You know? “Have you ever been convicted?” “No.” Well, if I’ve never been convicted of something, why do I have to say that I’ve ever been AAHP 373; Washington; Page 55

arrested of something? Why are you asking me that anyway? What’s it got to do

with what I’m going to do? And it does, it always has something to do. It did all

the time, still does. And so, you spend your life as a young person trying to

change things, and you spend the next ten years of your life trying to get this

thing off of your record, trying to make sure it has no meaning. We were dragged

back here for a couple of times to go to court. And I never really knew what the

final resolution was for those cases, that all of us were arrested en masse and

taken to court and tried as a group. So, if one of us is guilty, all of us are guilty. It

was just frustrating. It’s the kind of thing that is not taken away from the life of the

African American male, in particular, today. We’ve got too many Blacks in jail for

nonviolent crimes, and for minor things that other folks can do and get away with.

And folks can do even more serious things and get no time. And yet, all this

human capital wasting away in prison when it doesn’t have to be. People get out,

they do their time to pay for their crime—sometimes they didn’t commit the

crime—and even when they have done that, they can’t get a decent job because

states still don’t grant an easy process for felons to have their records expunged

or their felony charge not considered as a distractor from them getting a job.

There’s just so much out there, and there’s still residual bitterness, and active

bitterness. It’s very discouraging.

M: As it would be. I did have one question about the jail, actually. I don’t know if you

remember this—because I don’t know if it overlaps with when you were there.

Zev Aelony. Do you remember him?

W: Zeb? AAHP 373; Washington; Page 56

M: He was a Minnesotan. He was a White guy who was part of CORE. I think he

had come to Tallahassee. He had been in Georgia, and then he went down to

the University of Florida, and around to other places. And so, when he got to

Ocala, they put him in jail. And they were charging him with mental—do you need

a moment?

[Interchange and break in recording]

M: So anyway, Zev Aelony—basically what happened was, they tried to charge him

with mental incompetence, and then hold him indefinitely, I think. And they were

having him beaten and things in the jail in Ocala. And so, Frank led a number of

the students to—you know, the younger protesters—to occupy the jail. So I don’t

know if you remember that.

W: I don’t. I don’t remember his name, nor that event. This probably took place in the

summer beyond [19]63, because ours was initial activities, and I think—for

example, Dorsey Miller was a senior in high school when I was here. My first

year, so that meant that he was a freshman in college in the summer of 1962.

And other people, like Rosalind Parker’s participation, I think—Mrs. Thelma

Parker may have talked to you about that. Those were kids who may have

participated after. They may have participated in their senior year. Some of them

did, in their senior year, in the protest demonstration, the initial protest

demonstrations. But they were all kids going off to college. And there was a,

there were different groups of children, young people. There were those whose

parents could afford to send them to college, and those whose parents could not

afford to send them to college, from high school. And they would just stay here AAHP 373; Washington; Page 57

and go to the junior college, as opposed to going off to college. And those were

likely to be some of those young people who participated in the initial sit-ins. I

sorely regret that I could not find that article, because I wanted so much to make

sure I mentioned the names of those young folks whom I remember participating

who were courageous and dedicated, whose names never get mentioned, and

they need to be mentioned. And when I find that, I will share it with you. Anyway,

so it’d have to be mentioned. I know a young woman named Patricia—Pat. Pat—

she’s Carter now, she married the late Matt King Carter, a minister in Broward

County, Florida. Pat participated in the sit-ins, initial ones. And Pat’s name never

gets mentioned anywhere. And it needs to be mentioned. And there’s some other

folks. David Rackard, who was the vice-president of the NAACP Youth Council.

David was a strong participant—although I think he got some resistance from his

family, some members did not want him to participate. I don’t know whatever

happened to David, but I remember David very well.

M: He’s actually living in Tallahassee.

W: Is he?

M: I haven’t caught up with him yet, but I’ve got his number somewhere around

here, yeah.

W: Good. When you catch up with him, you make sure you tell him I mentioned him.

I will try myself to try to find him, too, if he’s in Tallahassee. Here in Tallahassee?

M: Yeah, here. I can give you his number.

W: Thank you. Do that, afterwards. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 58

M: My pleasure. So, I was going to ask about that, the—I mean, young people were

being jailed, and there was a lot of understandable fear. I mean, Marion County

did not have a—it had a pretty rough history, let’s put it that way.

W: Right.

M: Did you see much resistance from the Black community to the Civil Rights—or,

reluctance. Did you see much concern and that kind of thing, or—?

W: Reluctance, yes. But there were some folks like—I think it’s a fellow named

“Pinkney”? Pinkney.

M: Pinkney Woodbury?

W: Yeah, Pinkney Woodbury. This guy was a real encouragement to young folks. He

certainly was to me. He ran for city council, I believe, or something—the first

Black to do that. And young folks saw that. Young folks saw that as courage and

determination, and purposefulness, and were motivated by that. But you have to

remember, you’re talking about a context of racial reprisals, racial denial, racial—

well, denial on the basis of race and racism. People were concerned about

livelihood. You’ve got to live. If you’re working, and you’ve been treated a certain

way, and you have tried to counter the system of adverse treatment, and as a

result, you felt the negative consequence thereof, and that fed into negative

consequences for your family—feeding your children, where you live, what you

had—you will tend to moderate what you do. You want to live on the border of

immense resentment. Take as much as you can in order to continue. And if you

have an opportunity where you can participate in something that is far more

visible, far more powerful, far more robust and apparent, but if you did it takes AAHP 373; Washington; Page 59

you right across that line, you’re going to be very, very reluctant. And if there’s

anyone close to you that’s going to participate, you’re also going to be reluctant.

You are to discourage them from doing it, but you don’t want to kill their spirit.

And I think that is exactly what occurred in Ocala and other places. But I also

think it reached a point whereby it becomes increasingly clear to those on the

edge that if we don’t participate more, we’re going to always be on the edge. We

can’t let our children do all of this. We must come to the Mass Meetings. We

must encourage them to do what they have to. We must think about what we

need to do if they get arrested. We must try to stop some of the gossiping, and

some of the end-around that would take place there. There’s always been the

feeling that there would be people in the community who ought not to be talking

to other folks about what you’ve decided to do, who will—for whatever reasons: if

they thought it made it easy on them; they looked good in the eyes of those with

whom they are sharing the information that they ought not to be sharing. There

are people who did that. And that’s not good. But that’s always been a part—in

my opinion—of any constructive activity to change things.

M: A quick question: is there anything else you remember about Pinkney Woodbury

as a man, or as a—did you interact with him much, or—?

W: I didn’t. I remember reading a lot about him. I think I may have seen him a couple

of times. But I never really had—I may have had a conversation with him, but I

can’t remember whether I did or not. But it was an interesting—the impression I

have in my head, and I’m not quite sure where I got it from, is that, here’s a guy

who—doggedly persistent in the face of clear opposition. Meaning, there are AAHP 373; Washington; Page 60 folks who didn’t want him to run. “Why are you doing that?” “You trying to cause us trouble?” Here’s a guy who impressed me as someone who believed, “We need to do this. We need to have a say in our lives, in the policies that affect us.

And I’m going to run. And I’m hoping you’re going to vote for me.” And who did.

And I think—I don’t know his full political history, but I think that he ended up doing some good by being on some bodies and organizations to help. And I think we needed more people like Woodbury to do that. No, but I don’t know a lot. It was—for me, it was an intense, short period of time. There were numerous things going on in my own life, and yet, this was so very important to me and what little I could do, I wanted to do it. I’m increasingly discovering as I go back and look at what my wife has pulled together—your call, and my wife’s activity about trying to preserve who and what I am—she’s put together a lot of binders.

She’s gone through my files over thirty years, and she’s pulled out all these letters from all these various people and all these different circumstances we’ve been in. The different universities, the different community organizations, and all of the awards, et cetera; I have boxes of awards on the floor. Only this year did I finally put them on the wall. I just—none of that stuff mattered to me. And she keeps saying, “You’ve got a son. It matters to him.” And I am discovering that there are a lot of things that I have done that had you just stopped me on the street, stuck a microphone in my face, and said, “Do you remember doing this in

19blahblahblah,” I will say to you, “No. I don’t have a clue. Are you talking to the right guy?” “Well do you remember such-and-such?” And I’ll probably say, “No.

I’m sorry, you must have the wrong guy.” And you can go back and say, “Well, is AAHP 373; Washington; Page 61

this you?” And I would say, “Well, that is. I guess I did do that, didn’t I?” It’s just

not the kind of thing I focus upon. There’s just enough challenge for tomorrow, to

consume my attention, for me to think about what challenge I may have

overcome in the past.

M: I can understand that. Are we okay on time, or—?

W: Well, we will probably have to—you got any other key questions, we’ll probably

have to deal with those. We are one hour beyond where we should be.

M: Oh! I’m sorry, I—

W: That’s all right. No problem. But I want to make sure you got what you came here

to get.

M: I can—I do have some more questions. But you’re sure this is okay?

W: Well, go ahead and hit a couple of them, let’s see what we can do.

M: Okay. I mean, I can always come up with more questions, but I think they’re—

W: I’m not encouraging you. [Laughter]

M: I would like to know, is there anything else you could say about the Mass

Meetings? Because I have heard the turnout for those was—well, that they had

speakers outside the church because they couldn’t fit everybody inside.

W: I can only remember the one Mass Meeting of that magnitude. That doesn’t

mean the others were not of the same magnitude. But I know that the meetings

were full of people. And there were speakers on the outside for people who

wanted to hear who could not come on the inside. I didn’t focus on those things. I

just didn’t—I was too focused on what we were about. I really was. “We’ve got to

change stuff. Things have got to be different. And if we’re going to protest”—I AAHP 373; Washington; Page 62

was very concerned about how we were going to do it, our being organized to do

it, and our doing it correctly, so that we don’t subject ourselves to arrest when we

have overlooked something in a law, or violated some procedural expectation or

failing to follow some protocol. If we’re going to sit at these counters and place

our order, we need to all know what we’re going to do, all have money, all know

that we can expect people to say things to us, and if they do here’s what we do,

what we don’t do. We don’t want to have any problems beyond what we will

encounter. We want to minimize any effects on people. And that’s what it was.

And I think, to the extent that I could use my little developing voice at that time to

encourage people to get involved, and to let their children be involved—I think I

was nineteen at the time—I would do what I could. But I let the grownups take

care of the grownup stuff, and I took care of the stuff that I could take care of.

And I was respectful of what Frank wanted to have done, and tried to be

encouraged by his leadership.

M: Okay. Which leads me to—I just wanted to know what the role of the NAACP

Youth Council was within this wider movement. Because you were the president,

correct? What were the specific goals within that branch of all of this?

W: I’m sure that must be written down somewhere. I have not reviewed it, nor do I

remember having reviewed it previously. But just the logic of it all, and the

recollection of what we did, and what our purposes were more generally, the

answer would be, the goals would be the very same things as the NAACP,

except that, in the early [19]60s, the NAACP writ large—structurally, which was

an integrated body, you know already—had to deal with much bigger issues. The AAHP 373; Washington; Page 63

NAACP Legal Defense Fund, for example, with the legal consequences of the kinds of actions that the NAACP takes care of. The larger organization of public policy influences at the national level, and membership development, and coordinating a body across the whole spectrum of the country. So when you’re coming down to the specifics of the Civil Rights Movement, each specific had a personality of its own. Each community had a set of leaders who were sometimes—many times—members of the NAACP, but not necessarily members of the NAACP. But if they were, they would then have to know how what they were doing linked to what the NAACP more largely was doing, and what kind of support, if any, it could get from them—or it. And then, what kind of coordination must it develop with other organizations more locally? And I think the NAACP

Youth Council was, in effect, the foot soldiers. They are the first line of engagement that would make a difference. Think about it. You can’t expect fully- employed people working eight hours a day to take off from work to—“Sir, I’m going to go participate in the revolution today.” “Oh, really? Against whom?” “You folks.” “Oh. Are you going to be back to work tomorrow?” “Oh, yeah. I want my raise, too.” You know? You just can’t expect that. And younger people had to see the need for a change, otherwise there would be no change. And they had to embrace that need, and they had to be willing to accept the consequences of their participation. You could be arrested. You could be thrown in jail. Your progress throughout your life’s trip to where you want to take yourself might be impeded by your doing this, but you have to make that decision. And so, the

Youth Council became the body of activist main line for producing the change AAHP 373; Washington; Page 64

within the context of law. And if you got arrested and you were a youth, you got

the chance of being less adversely affected than if you were arrested and you

were an adult. So, there may have been some strategy built into that initially. Or,

there may not have been. But, I saw the NAACP Youth Council as the means for

us to do something—to do something, and not just talk about it. And to do

something now. And do it within the context of the broader program. And that’s

what I felt we would do.

M: Okay. Given that—I mean, if you’d be interested in a follow-up interview some

day down the road, I would be, I think there’s a lot more that we could talk about.

But I did have one final question if that’s all right. Just—and you sort of alluded to

this, but—what do you think the influence of your time in Ocala has been on your

later life? I mean, it seems like it was a powerful moment.

W: The influence that I think my time in Ocala had on my later life. I think it kept me

aware of the need to look for opportunities to participate in the change process.

And every place I have been where it became apparent to me that we still have

racism. We still have bigotry. We still have prejudices. We still have this major

issue of ignorance. And we still have this preponderance of stupidity. And you

cannot let your guard down and say, “Everything’s all right.” Because everything

isn’t all right. And you’re not going to solve the problem by yourself. So, while it

kept me aware of the need, it also kept me aware of the limitations of my

capacity to change it. But it always kept me motivated to do what I could,

wherever I was. And that’s what I’ve had to do. In all the educational institutions

in which I’ve worked, I’ve had to do it, and in non-educational, non-teaching kinds AAHP 373; Washington; Page 65 of jobs I’ve had to do it. In my interaction with people, I’ve had to do it. So it’s a constant on-the-job effort to try to make things a bit better between people who just happen to look different. We just got to stop, got to get beyond the exterior appearances. I wish—this is a terrible thing to say—there ought to be an experiment where in critical care hospitals that you would label, randomly, certain blood plasma as that from Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Caucasians, et cetera. Run a controlled experiment. Ask people who are on their dying beds,

“Sir, you are an African American. You need three pints of blood. And you’ve got a choice. We’ve got some Black blood, some White blood—Caucasian blood,

Asian blood, African blood. But you can choose whichever one you want.” Just let them choose. And just see what people would do. See, right now, people don’t know what kind of blood they’ve got in them. It’s red. And I think if people were to stop and think about it, “If I’m dying, this guy I’ve been calling all these terrible names just gave some blood, and that blood’s saving my life!” So why do you hate this guy? Or this woman? This person? Doesn’t make any sense! So, I think it has caused me to be constantly aware of this walk through life. It’s a walk now. It was a run once. But when the running slows down, the pace drops off into a trot. And now I’m into the walking stage. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to walk this life. But I’ve asked for a hundred years, and my wife tells me I’m crazy.

So I’m asking. I want a hundred. I want to see what a hundred years of my life would have produced in the way of the change in mankind, humankind. Not the technology; I want to know how people have changed in that hundred years. And

I would be very saddened if at the end of that hundred years, I found not much. AAHP 373; Washington; Page 66

M: I guess that’s a good place to close, then. So, thank you very much for joining

me.

W: Well, thanks for inviting me. I hope this has been useful.

M: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.

W: And I don’t know how I’m going to come across on that tape recorder, but we’ll

see.

M: Quite well, I’m sure.

[End of recording]

Transcribed by: Ryan Morini, April 29, 2015

Audit-edited by: Holland Hall, February 23, 2017

Final edit by: Ryan Morini, February 25, 2019