INTERVIEWER: Edwin Barce, Chief Historian, Washington Office of the
National Parks Service

ALSO PRESENT: Ed Barce, Lake Lambert, Barbara Tagger, and Blair Hubbard

LOCATION: Library, Selma Alabama

**\[00:31\]**

**Q:** This is the 4th day of September, 1991. We are in the library in
Selma Alabama. We\'re with Mr. Albert Turner of Perry County, City of
Marion. We\'re going to be discussing events that took place more than
30 years ago. Interviewing, participating in the interview are myself,
Ed Barce, Chief Historian, National Park Service, Lake Lambert and
Bargar Tagger of the Atlanta Regional Office, and Blair Hubbard, of
Harper\'s Ferry Center.

Mr. Turner was a participant in these soul stirring events, and I\'m
going to start off by asking Mr. Turner to say a little bit about
himself: his background, education, occupation, and family.

**\[01:22\]**

**A:** Well, I\'m about 55 years of age, married with four children.
They all are out of college at this time. My youngest is a lawyer. I was
raised in this area. As far as I can go back, all of my family came from
this general area of the state of Perry County, as far as I can go back.

**\[01:49\]**

I went to Alabama A&M College with a degree, a BS Degree in Mechanical
Arts, in terms of education. And I have been participating in what I
consider the struggle since 1962. At one point I served as state
director for Martin King. I ran the state of Alabama, for seven years,
from 65 to 72.

My occupation presently is an insurance agent. I have an independent
insurance agency. I am also a County Commissioner in Perry County, and
still very active in the political arena throughout the state of
Alabama.

**Q:** In Perry County, what was the ratio of blacks to whites in 1960?

**\[02:49\]**

**A:** The ratio was roughly 65% black, and the ratio is still about 65%
black at this time. In the early 60\'s, of course there were no
registered, even though we were 65%, and there were no elected
officials. When I began in 1962, there had not been a single black
registered to vote in any period of ten years. And it did not matter
whether you had been to college, or what you had done, you simply did
not participate in the political situation.

**\[03:25\]**

**Q:** Would you describe the registration process as it existed to
disfranchise blacks in Perry County?

**A:** Well, one of the keys was the fact that you had to have a
registered voter to recommend you. In fact, you had to have three to do
what they call vouch for you. And that was very difficult when there
were no registered voters, in reality. Once we started trying to break
that barrier, we started trying to learn the literacy tests, which is a
very difficult thing also. They gave us something called tests, literacy
tests, that you probably had to know the Constitution of the United
States to answer. When I first began, I started trying to teach people
how to pass the test. This was my first involvement, and as much as I
was one of the one or two college graduates that that time.

**\[04:24\]**

Once we started that process, the system the registrars, or the people,
or whatever you want to call it, began a system that had a book of
tests. In other words, you would walk up to the desk to become a
registered voter, and they would have maybe 65 or 200 tests in a book,
and they would tell you to open the book. And wherever you opened the
book, that was your test. And of course, this made it very difficult,
then, for anybody to be able to assist people in passing what was known
as a literacy test.

**\[04:56\]**

**Q:** Now if I white had went up there, say a white that was
semi-illiterate, would they ask, would they be given the answers, or
were they even given the test?

**A:** To be very practical with you, I cannot truthfully say what
happened, but I do know they were raised to the tune of something like
100 to 150%. I would not be able to say \"Well, they took a test\" and
to be very honest with you, I doubt it. But at that time, there were
many white voters than there whites in the county.

**\[05:34\]**

**Q:** So the graveyard was growing?

**A:** Oh, that\'s for sure.

**Q:** Then, granted the voting right is the most important right you
have, because then you have the right of influencing what happens, were
the blacks discriminated against in other ways, or more so in Perry
County than they were in Dallas? Or was it better to live in Dallas for
a black, or in Perry County, or would there be any difference?

**\[06:06\]**

**A:** In my\-- To answer that truthfully, I don\'t really that it was
no better nowhere. Wherever you are, you were black, and in reality, you
got the same treatment. I guess to shorten a long conversation, this
area of the United States was very similar to what happens in South
Africa today during that period of time. There was absolutely no
representation nowhere in this general, black belt area in the state in
general.

**\[00:06:39\]**

Segregation was almost as serious as in South Africa today. You didn\'t
even drink from the same water fountain, or you couldn\'t ride the same
buses. I mean, it was just almost unbelievable. There were some
instances where you had to walk off of the sidewalk when you met a white
lady. You had to tip your hat to her. And of course, it was just almost
hard to believe what really existed in the late 50\'s and the early
60\'s.

As blacks began to try to raise up or obtain their rights somewhat in
the early 50\'s, the oppression got much more severe. Martin King really
started efforts in the early 50\'s in Montgomery, and we had the
desegregation orders and so forth.

**\[07:32\]**

And of course, in those days opposition from the white community began
to stiffen. The Klu Klux Klan, and so forth, began to become much more
assertive, to be sure that we, well the general idea was to
\...(inaudible) us, to frighten us so that we would never obtain these
rights.

**\[07:50\]**

**Q:** In the summer of \'55 is when Martin Luther King and Montgomery.
Was that that the first, did that kind of strike you like a bolt of
lightening, or did you\-- What were your thoughts during the Montgomery
boycott?

**A:** At that time I was a college student. I finished high school in
1953, and I admired what King was doing. It was so revolutionary. To be
very practical, we never dreamed that something like that would happen
to a small place like Perry County at the time.

Our general ideology was that maybe this would happen in big cities like
Montgomery or Birmingham, but not in the rural areas. It was almost
unbelievable that something would happen of that nature.

**\[08:41\]**

But I guess if I told you the truth, as far as I can go back, my family
has always been a family who did not accept status quo, I guess it\'s
just something born in me. And I have always been one of those who did
not really exactly agree. And I was very elated to see what was
happening in Montgomery, even though I was in college at the time, and
about all I could do was organize boycotts in college to show my
resentment or my support for what King was doing.

**\[09:20\]**

**Q:** And when you got out of college, you returned to?

**A:** Marion.

**Q:** And then you, being a person that didn\'t like, coming from a
family that didn\'t like to be oppressed, how quick did you begin to get
into some activities at colleges, say, on organizing boycotts, but then
I think there came the Freedom Rides?

**\[09:48\]**

**A:** Yes. I was not involved in those Freedom Rides, of course. I went
to Alabama A&M, and of course, very little of that type of activity went
on at a state college, and especially one like Alabama A&M where rural,
poor blacks went to school.

When I, surprisingly enough, when I finished high school, I guess I
tried what you\'d call a cop out. Most people had expected me to college
to be something like a lawyer, or a doctor, or something. I was supposed
to have been a very good student. But I looked at the situation, and the
only thing available to blacks at that time was school teaching, and I
could not stomach being a black school teacher in rural black Alabama,
and I never dreamed of living nowhere but in this area.

**\[10:40\]**

I chose to be a bricklayer. And I chose being a bricklayer as a cop out,
or as a means of being able to make a living, without having to confront
the system. That\'s what I really thought. I thought I could go out and
lay brings and come home, and go to bed, and be out of the way, and not
have to be involved. And because it was such a miserable situation then,
and anybody who even dreamed of trying to attack the system at that
time, was almost like already dead.

And a lot of people wondered why I chose mechanical arts when I went to
college, but it was the thing I saw as a way of making a decent living,
or making some money, and not having to be involved in what I considered
as white overseers in the system.

**\[11:31\]**

And when I first came home, I finished college in \'57, but I cannot
remember doing nothing organizationally until about \'62. So the first
years of my life I was a young married man with young children, and
trying to be a good boy. \[Laughter\]

**\[11:50\]**

**Q:** Now when you started organizing, who contacted you, or who did
you contact first?

**A:** It was very difficult to be with this \...(inaudible). The first
initial contact that I can remember of any kind of an organization thing
was a former guy named Mr. Patton, who was the President, I think, of
the NAACP in Birmingham, and he sent us some literature through the
mail. I became a member of the NAACP. That was about all you could do at
that time. And I got literature through the mail encouraging us start
voter registrations, and then learning the literacy and so forth. So I
took up the idea of being the individual that would teach other blacks
how to pass the literacy test.

**\[12:40\]**

This is information that really came from Mr. Patton in Birmingham,
that\'s how I got the first information I know of about it. But once it
started it became a chain reaction thing. We had a guy named a Mr.
Banks, Roland Banks, I believe that\'s right. And if I can remember
correctly, he was the first man; he was the guy who kind of traveled a
lot, and picked up newspapers, and went all over Birmingham, and stuff
like this.

**\[13:07\]**

He came back, and he was the individual who kind of initially started
talking to us. But at the very first organization meeting, they asked me
to represent them as spokesman for the group.

**Q:** This was Mr. Banks?

**A:** Yes. And I think I was silly enough to accept it. I was very
young then, maybe 25 or 6 years old, and I took the challenge as being
president of Perry County \...(inaudible) League(?) and we had to
organize out in the rural. We couldn\'t organize in the city. We went
about 15 miles out in the country where blacks owned their own property
and so forth. That was our thing. We always would look for the
communities where they were basically black, and they owned their own
land, and they didn\'t have the confrontation with the plantation
system.

**\[13:57\]**

And we chose West Perry as our organizational point because we knew
everybody in town was working for white folks in the kitchen, or
whatever, so you wouldn\'t have no luck there. So we really went where
there were some independent blacks to begin our first, whatever you want
to call it, movement, or talking, or trying to get ready to vote. But
this was probably \'61 or \'62 when we first began.

**\[14:24\]**

### 

### So we stayed out there secretly as long as we could, what we called secretly, but eventually sheriffs started coming out there harassing us and so forth. That\'s when we just came on back to town. We decided, you know, all or nothing.

**Q:** When did you get your first black registered in Perry County?

**A:** There were several blacks registered when we started, but they
were blacks that had registered, like my father in the 40\'s. My father
was one of those who paid poll tax. He got registered before, I would
say the moratorium was called. From 1950 to 1960, or let\'s say 19,
maybe 1955 to \'65, a period of ten years there was actually not a
single black person registered.

**\[15:16\]**

But it had been a situation where they would let certain blacks register
to vote if they paid the poll taxes, and this and that, and the good
blacks. \[Laughter\] So we had 150 blacks registered when we really got
the right to vote, and that came from the old black people who were like
daddy, who were determined they had to pay, daddy had to pay a poll tax
from the time he was 21, and that was the first step they had to
\...(inaudible).

**\[15:46\]**

They had this poll tax and if you came in at 40, you had to go back and
pay poll tax from the time you was first 21. But daddy was one of those
who was determined not to be a part of the system to pay his old poll
tax up and all, and got registered back in those days.

But we technically did not consider what we had massive voter
registration until \'64, I would say , or \'65, right at the time when
Martin started here.

**Q:** Did SNCC come into Perry County much?

**\[16:29\]**

**A:** SNCC came in Perry County in the summer of \'64. They were
working in Dallas County at that time, and they sent one of their
representatives to Perry that summer. And of course as I stated, we
already was involved, and SNCC was not necessarily as concerned about
voter registration as I was. They were more concerned about the
awareness I guess, trying to make you aware that you were somebody.
It\'s a simple terminology, concerned about lunch counters and these
kinds of things. We had our first lunch counter encounter integration in
the summer of \'64. We had some small high school students went in that
summer. That\'s the first thing that SNCC was able to overtly do or
concretely do.

**\[17:18\]**

**A:** My real interests have always been the right to vote in politics.
I have a slogan that says \"Politics control you from the time before
you were born, until after you\'re dead.\" And my theory is that there
is no way for a man to exist in this country if he\'s not involved in
politics. And I use the issue of abortion as being a political situation
that involves you before you even get here.

And of course, in this area you have to be buried in the segregated
cemetary. And we could not be declared legally dead until some
politician said \"You\'re dead.\" So I simply tell my people that there
is nothing in my book more important than politics, and as much as it
controls your area to move even before you get here, and after you\'re
gone.

**\[18:10\]**

And I\'ve always been a very strong advocate of the political system.
That\'s one of the reasons, I guess, I gravitated to the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference so easy, and not towards the SNCC side
of the thing.

**Q:** When did you begin? SNCC you said showed up up in Marion County
in \'64.

**A:** Yeah, the summer.

**Q:** When did Southern Christian Leadership\--

**\[18:35\]**

**A:** The came to one in \'65, that following winter. If I remember
correctly, they officially came to Perry County February the 1st, but
they had started to, well, came to Selma officially that year in
January, I believe I\'m right. But the first Monday in February was
called D-Day in Perry County, 1965. And that\'s the first day we, as a
group of people, organized massively, and went to the court house to
protest for the right to vote. They took 350 of us down that day. And
that was the first time something like that ever had happened in this
general area. And we stayed there all day.

**\[19:17\]**

And of course, from that day until this day, we have been involved in
protests and what have you.

**Q:** Was the sheriff up there of the same caliber as Clark here at
that time?

**A:** There was no real difference. Clark was just from a larger city,
and got more publicity.

**Q:** He got lots more publicity but\--

**\[19:40\]**

**A:** But they all, in fact I really seriously think that the smaller
the counties were, and the rural they were, the more vicious the
situation was. I have been involved in almost anything of any magnitude
in terms of confrontations in this area, and I still continued until the
night Jimmy Jackson was killed, was the most vicious night I have ever
been involved in, and including the Bridge, that Sunday on the Bridge.

**Q:** Would you from\-- You\'ve said that D-Day was February 1, 1965.

**\[20:15\]**

**A:** Yeah.

**Q:** And 18 days after that, Jimmie Lee Jackson is going to be killed.

**A:** Exactly.

**Q:** Receive his mortal wound.

**A:** Exactly.

**\[20:23\]**

**Q:** Would you describe what happens between following up on your
statement there, which I lived in Mississippi at the time, and I felt
that Sheriff Rainy was much more vicious than any of the city sheriffs
over in Mississippi.

**A:** \[Laugher\] Well, the same thing was true in the rural areas.

**Q:** But you followed through on it?

**\[20:40\]**

**A:** Well technically we started to, what we called, Direct Action;
mass demonstrations, whatever you want to call it, the first day of
February, and we didn\'t stop. When we went to the court house that day,
we went back every day, and we would go back in larger numbers.

**\[21:02\]**

I cannot remember specifically the days and orders, but during that
period of time, all of us was arrested, and put into jails everywhere
that they could find a jail. They even took us to the prisons, and
filled us up with prisons.

I remember being in a prison cell, one cell that had one commode stool,
and no drinking water. We drank water from a turret, and there was
something like 150 of us in one little room about this size.

**Q:** What was the jail, in what jail?

**A:** It was in, we called it Camp Selma, here in Selma where they
really brought me.

**Q:** They brought you down to Selma?

**\[21:43\]**

Yes. But they had people in Bibb County, and Marengo County. They had a
little prison in Marengo County where some went. They sent us to the
jails in Bibb. And of course, I had already been put in jail beforehand
in Marion. I was the first person to get arrested in the city of Marion
in that area, and I spent a day or two in jail there.

**\[22:06\]**

But I guess the main thing that happened during that period of time, is
that we just continually met every day and every night, and we went to
the court house every day, until they jailed us.

And the jailing was supposed to have been the first overt act of tyranny
to stop us. But we had been trained that every time they raised the
momentum, that we were supposed to raise it. The more they tried to stop
us, the more we were supposed to up our desire of our activities. That
was part of the strategy.

**\[22:15\]**

So when they arrested me, then everybody demanded to go to jail; that
was the ideology, and they did. I guess in a small town like Perry, they
put in over 500 or a thousand people in jail. And our theory was to put
more people in jail than they could hold, that was the theory, and
they\'d have to turn us loose, and we did. We filled up all the jails,
in all fairness. It got to the point where they started asking people to
come bail us out.

**\[23:12\]**

We were supposed to break them. We were supposed to eat them up.
\[Laughter\] And that, then we made jail a joyous situation. Everybody
sang, and laughed, and went on, instead of being sad and frightened. And
that\'s the first time they had ever seen this happen. You had mentioned
jail in the past, you were supposed to get out of the way.

Once all of us got out of jail, we came back and we started out
activities right back. In fact, we never did stop them. We upped the
tempo. And the night they actually killed Jimmie Jackson, we had decided
to have our first 24 hour activity. We had been having it all day, and
at night we\'d only have a meeting. But that night we were going to go
to the jail and have a vigil, all night vigil. They had arrested James
Orange that night, and James Orange was the SCLC individual in this area
who was\--

**\[24:16\]**

**Q:** He was the coordinator.

**A:** -coordinating. So they decided that the rest of the meeting
wasn\'t going to work. Then the next thing they decided is that well,
we\'ll get the SCLC guy who\'s really teaching them what to do, so to
speak, and that will break it up.

**\[24:29\]**

So once they put James in Jail, then we went to another excalation of
night time activity really, that\'s what he idea, and we left the church
at night to go to the jail, and have a vigil. But I understand, I don\'t
know how true this is, but I think it\'s pretty true, that the local
officials called the state and informed the state that we were going to
the jail at night to break James Orange out. And this would supposedly
have been what gave Governor Wallace and all of the elected officials
the authority, or the impetus(?) to deputize everybody that would take a
gun or a stick, and beat us up.

So their theory that night was to kill any black person, and that was
supposed to be the next move that they\'d make.

**\[25:21\]**

**Q:** That was their escalation(?).

**A:** Yes, to stop us. And of course, once they killed Jimmie Jackson,
then our next move then was to escalate higher. And surprisingly enough,
this is really what started the march to the bridge that Sunday. Most
people don\'t know that in reality, the idea of marching to Montgomery
started as the result of Jimmie Jackson\'s death.

**\[25:46\]**

We were so infuriated over what happened to us that night.
\...(inaudible) was there that night, but all the lights were shut out,
and his head was burst(?) and of course they beat anybody that night who
was black. It didn\'t matter whether you led the church that night. If
you was black and they caught you, you got beat. In fact, most of the
people who got hurt was people who was not involved at all, they were
just black.

So we decided after they killed Jimmie, that we were going to take
Jimmie\'s body to the state capital, and dump it on the steps.
\[Laughter\] That would supposedly have been the\--

\[Simultaneous conversations\]

**\[26:27\]**

That\'s how bad, that\'s how serious we were supposed to be getting. And
of course Dr. King said to us then that he thought that all of us ought
to organize, and go to Montgomery in a mass, and not care. We were
supposed to walk all the way to Montgomery and carry Jimmy\'s body in a
casket. That\'s how stupid we were at the time. We really was about
insane, we had gotten so involved in this \...(inaudible) didn\'t
nothing make no sense no more. We were just out kind of like in war, to
be frank with you, and we were determined, really, to break the system
down. That sounds kind of strange, but it was about at that point.

**\[27:08\]**

And there was nothing at that time that we were not ready to do, short
of violence. We really did not anticipate doing anything in terms of
bombing, or shooting or nothing, but anything within the lines of the
non-violent movement, we were ready to do it.

**\[27:28\]**

And about half of the people or more that was beat on the Bridge that
Sunday, was the same people who had gotten beat that night in Marion. We
had a long caravan of cars that came down that Sunday morning from
Marion, that was maybe four or five miles long. And once we got here and
found out that there was not going to be a march to Montgomery, we came
with our clothes and our lunch. So you may look back in some of the
records and find that you saw some people in that demonstration with
little old knapsacks on their back. We were supposed to be prepared to
walk, and had our own food, and clothing. That was the people from Perry
County.

**\[28:12\]**

And once we got here, we found out that Dr. King and so forth, had
decided that we were not going to Montgomery that day, but we from Perry
County didn\'t know all of this. And I had so many people, and had been
trained that you never get people that ready, and don\'t do nothing. So
in all fairness, I was the individual who seriously insisted we had to
march in some form or fashion that day, to keep from killing the
movement.

While everybody was flipping quarters and so forth trying to figure out
who was going to lead the line, because we knew that day, that\'s the
one day we knew what was going to happen to us before we left. Most
times we \...(inaudible) thought, but we had been told even before we
marched that day, that hell or high water we was not going to be able to
cross that bridge that day. This is what made that specific situation so
much different from the others.

**\[29:09\]**

We knew that we was going to get beat up or killed, or something if we
went. But we still felt that morally and from a standpoint of the
movement we called the momentum and all these kinds of things, we had to
go that day to keep the movement from dying.

**\[29:29\]**

And ironically, this is really what did spark the movement. And I have
to admit to you I was terribly insistent that we go somewhere, and we
had to march that day until finally John Lewis, and he was there to
represent SNCC that day. And Hosea and Andy was there from SCLC, and
they flipped quarters to see which one of them was going to march, and
which one was going to stay back. They called King and let them know how
many of us was dead. \[Laughter\] And they organized ambulances and so
forth to take us to the hospital, we was that well prepared, or was
trying to get that well prepared, because we knew what was going to
happen.

**\[30:11\]**

So Andy won the toss, and he got the opportunity to stay back and
organize the rescue of us, and Jose had to lead. So Hosea and John Lewis
led that day as SLCL and SNCC and I was the state director at the time,
so I walked second, along with Bob Mance, who was, at the same time, was
the field director for SNCC. But that\'s pretty much how it went.

**\[30:47\]**

**Q:** Would you describe, you leave the church. Would you describe what
happened after you leave the church, that you run into a Major McLeod
and his men?

**A:** \[Laughter\] The fear and it was a scary situation that day. I
guess if I had to tell the truth, it probably was the most fearful march
I ever had, knowing\-- We certainly didn\'t know whether we was going to
be thrown off in the river that day. The situation had gotten to be bad,
it really had. And Jimmie was already killed, so we expected some more
to be killed, and we were looking for anything.

And as I said, it was the first time that I left our destination,
knowing that my destination was going to be a beating. In another
situation, we knew it was a possibility based on whether we provoked
people, or whether they provoked, or whatever happened, and we knew that
was possible. But this was one day we had been told we had better not
march, and that word had come directly to us from the troopers, and from
the governor\'s office, and everywhere else.

**\[31:58\]**

We called Dr. King and told him what the situation was, and Dr. King
told us what had been said, and that even \...(inaudible) and everybody
else had basically forbidden us from walking that day.

**\[32:14\]**

And we explained to him why we had to walk. So he finally told us to
call Abernathy, and if Abernathy tell us to go, go. So we called
Aberthany and he told us that if we were fool enough to march, go ahead
on. \[Laughter\] So we had to march anyway that day, but it was a very
nervous situation for us.

Now I hate to admit that we never did really tell the marchers the
situation, but it\'s just the truth. There was no way we could really go
out and announce to a crowd of people what was going to really happen.
It was not the strategy, no way, but the leaders of the situation knew.
The other people took off as if they were going on to Montgomery. We
didn\'t tell them how serious the situation was. But then the people
like myself and Hosea and the rest of us who had been in that room all
day debating about what to do and how to do it, we knew what was going
to happen to us.

**\[33:19\]**

So what we tried to do is organize the people to walk and in columns of
twos, with a distance of, I think it was five feet or something, we
\...(inaudible). But anyway, it was supposed to be a method of marching
that was not unlawful. We was going to walk on the sidewalk also.

**\[33:36\]**

So we supposedly have been called out to march on that day legally and
constitutionally, we stopped obeying signs and these kinds of things
that day, and it was not like the rest of the marches. This was done, I
guess because we all, most of us were breaking the federal court order,
to a certain extent.

**Q:** Then I was just going to ask, of the people there on Bloody
Sunday, how many of them were from Marion as opposed to Dallas County?

**\[34:15\]**

**A:** By the time we marched, I would estimate that at least 50% of
them were from Marion. It may have even been higher. Because the people
from Marion had carpooled down. Their interest was so much higher. This
all of a sudden had stemmed from Jimmie Jackson\'s thing. He had been
buried and all at that time. We had already been beaten up in Marion. It
was a very terrible situation.

So we didn\'t have no problem bringing people down here that Sunday, and
they was not anxious to go back home. They really stayed there to march.

**\[34:52\]**

A lot of people had come to the church here from Dallas County, and by
the time we were in the March that day, they had \...(inaudible) and
gone home. Because it really was about 2:00 or 3:00 o\'clock before we
really marched that Sunday. But we had, the people from Marion had been
out here since about 9:00 or 10:00 o\'clock that morning. We actually
came really thinking we was going to march.

See, when I left Marion, I didn\'t know that the march wasn\'t going to
be, and the people didn\'t know, even I didn\'t know. I found out all of
this once I got to Selma, and everybody started talking. We didn\'t see
no Dr. King or nothing, and you know how that is. We started asking
questions. But nobody had informed us about all of this news that they
had got, but you know logistically I understand it now, but see Dr.
King\'s thing, there was no logistical way we could go out and march. We
had no tents, no food. Nobody had made no arrangements, or nothing like
this. But that kind of stuff didn\'t come across our minds then. We
weren\'t thinking about nothing like this.

**\[35:56\]**

But you know today, I understand. We couldn\'t have marched, physically
gone to Montgomery no way. We would soon just think we could carry our
own food and clothes on our back, and sleep on our shoes. \[Laughter\]

**\[36:10\]**

**Q:** What is the background of Jimmie Lee Jackson?

**A:** For all practical purposes, Jimmie Jackson was just a regular
citizen. His parents were very involved, his granddad in particular. The
night he got killed, his granddad was a man about 85 or 86 years old,
who was terribly active for his age, and in the movement. He came almost
all of the time.

Jimmie had already lost his father. He got killed in a car accident, or
a truck accident, or something. He got hit getting off work one
afternoon. He stepped off the truck and went across the road, and
another truck ran over him. So Jimmy did not have a father, he had only
a mother and a sister, and his father was his granddaddy, and they all
was very fond of Mr. Cager(?), that was the granddaddy.

**\[37:05\]**

So in the middle of that that night, Mr. Cager got hit in the back of
the head. He was one of the participants in the march. And he left the
church and went about \...(inaudible) and everything was in the same
center there in Marion, and came down to the small café where Jimmie,
and his mother and sister was, people ran everywhere for cover.

**\[37:25\]**

And when he came, he came to get Jimmie to carry him to the doctor.
Jimmie had come that night to pick him up and take him home. Whether
Jimmie was in that church that night, I don\'t even know that, I really
don\'t. I can\'t truthfully say. He may have not been there even. But he
was there, I\'m sure, at the time all of the fighting an stuff went
down, and he was in the café when his grandfather found him down the
hill, in Knight\'s Café.

So Mr. Cager asked Jimmie to carry him to the doctor, and Jimmie was
determined to carry his granddaddy to the doctor. So when he started out
the door, the state troopers insisted that he not go out, that he
couldn\'t carry his granddaddy to the doctor, and Jimmie said, you know,
insisted that he do.

**\[38:17\]**

And of course then they just jumped in on him and started beating him,
and beat him down to the floor in the café. Of course, his mother was in
the café too, and when she saw that they probably was gonna kill him on
the floor, she supposedly had gotten a couple of Coke bottles, and got
them up off him.

**\[38:39\]**

And when that happened, they knocked her out. And when they knocker her
down, then they picked him up and shoved him in a corner, put a gun in
his side, and shot him. Once they did that, they ran him out of the
little café back up to the church, to make it look as if he had been
shot there at the church. But as he ran up the hill to the church, they
had a line of troopers who was lining up with those billy sticks. And as
Jimmy ran by, the \...(inaudible) cracked him across the head, and Jimmy
still did not fall until he got to the church, and passed the church by
about 15 or 20 feet.

At that point, he fell, but he had been shot before he left the café,
but a lot of people thought he was shot there at the church, or in front
of the church, but he would have ran up there later.

**\[39:28\]**

I don\'t personally know who carried Jimmie to the hospital. They took
him to the hospital in Marion, but they would not accept him. So he laid
there in the hospital for two or three hours in the hall waiting for
somebody to wait on him, and they wouldn\'t. And they then had to bring
him all the way here to Selma to the hospital.

So a lot of theories is that Jimmie\'s condition, and not getting
immediate medical attention, and he had been severely beaten, even
before he got shot. So there are several theories about how Jimmie, why
Jimmie really died, and that\'s one of them, is that he may have died
from the physical beating, more than he did from the pistol shot.

**\[40:14\]**

The other theory is that he was improperly stitched that night. The
bullet wound pierced his intestines, and after he had been in the
hospital several days, I guess seven or eight days, they attempted to
feed him solid food, and the wound broke. And in all fairness, Jimmie
died from the gangrene, when his intestines leaked into his stomach.

**Q:** You speak of the church up in Marion. What church was that?

**\[40:52\]**

**A:** The Zion Methodist. And it so happened that the church was on one
corner, and the City Hall was right across the street from that corner,
and the court house was right across the street, and the jail was right
down the hill. So everything was in a little block, and we had gotten
very bold at that time. We didn\'t care. We met right in the mouth of
the City Hall. We could almost throw a brick from City Hall to the
Church, and you could almost throw a brick from the church to the court
house.

**\[41:23\]**

And of course, the jail was right down the hill, that a good thrower
like Don Newcomb could throw a baseball through down to the jail. So in
all fairness, when you hear me talk about all of these things, all of it
was almost like these buildings around here.

**Q:** I take it Mac\'s Café was very close.

**A:** Exactly. It was only a stone\'s throw from the church.

**Q:** Is Mac\'s Café still standing?

**A:** No, it\'s not. In fact, they raised almost all the places they
could. I know where the physical spot is\--

**\[41:54\]**

**Q:** But the building itself\--

**A:** The building is not there.

**Q:** The church is still there though?

**\[41:56\]**

**A:** The church is, yeah. The church is still standing. In fact, the
church has been renovated, and it was a small building that was a bus
station when Jimmie physically fell, that was very close to the church
that\'s been erased, and a parking lot has been built there. The jail
still stands, of course.

**Q:** Then after Bloody Sunday, we\'ve got about a week or ten days
before we had the turn around on Tuesday. Did you participate in that?

**A:** I don\'t think I did.

**Q:** Right around Tuesday.

**\[42:36\]**

**A:** I don\'t think I was involved in that march where they just went
down to the bridge and turned around. That march was a staged march.
Everybody who was on the inside knew that that was a sure faith march,
and people like me was not that concerned about them kind of marches at
the time.

**\[43:00\]**

**Q:** When did you first personally meet Dr. King?

**A:** That\'s very difficult to say, but I\'m sure it was some time in
early February of that year.

**Q:** In February about?

**A:** Very early, yes. I had not personally met Dr. King before the
Civil Rights struggle here, in the sixties, in February of that year.

**Q:** Did you participate then when they made the big, did you
participate in\-- Many people from Marion participated in the March when
it was finally carried out from Selma.

**\[43:31\]**

**A:** Oh yeah.

**\[43:33\]**

**Q:** Would you describe the participation of yourself and the Marion
people in the big march, the one that goes through finally?

**A:** Quite a few people still walked the entire distance, because of
the, the whole situation that I talked about. I was considered to be the
head marshal of the march. It was my job to coordinate security. I
brought up the rear. In other words, my job, to explain what happened,
every 15 feet or something we would have a marshal that walked outside
of the line of marchers, and this was the specific design for specific
reasons. We always felt that if we had somebody that was very well
trained, every 15 feet, that we almost could physically protect
ourselves from any intruders. \[Laughter\] And that was my job. And my
job was to see that each of these people who was outside of the rank,
stayed all there, and kept his 15 people all there, kept them singing,
or whatever.

**\[44:55\]**

So you may have found me moving from one end of the line to the other
end of the line, as it moved. So I guess I walked to Montgomery two or
three times in the one time, and it was a very, very, very tedious job
that I had. I had to really be on my, at all times, I had to observe any
potential trouble makers or trouble, and pass the word, and probably
passed the word to our Selma leader, Winter Sange(?). We had a specific
mechanism to keep down violence, so we thought that there was going to
be trouble, and instead of allowing our people to participate in
arguments or discussion back and forth with the bystanders, they would
be singing instead, and clapping.

**\[45:47\]**

**A:** And a lot of times, you saw that on TV and didn\'t know that they
were organizing, and it was organized for a purpose. And of course, it
was my specific job to make sure that these kinds of things happened,
and that if I saw any reason to believe that there was trouble down the
road, I was to warn people, and warn the marshals, and have them on
their guard.

Of course, at night I was to guard the camp and watch, without really
watching. So I had a big responsibility, in all fairness, in that. Of
course, I cannot give any numbers, but there were a large number of
people who really wanted the entire distance from Marion.

END OF TAPE #507

BEGINNING OF TAPE #508

**\[00:05\]**

**Q:** We were talking about your activities during the march, during
the third week and the fourth week of March to Selma.

**\[00:17\]**

**A:** Well, I was considered to be one of the serious organizers, or
whatever you want to call it, one of the most, very sincere about what I
was doing, so the responsibility of security fell in my hands. Once we
go to Montgomery, I was to speak also as a representative from Perry
County. I addressed the crowd that day, and also as state director for
the field.

But it was my responsibility to be very sure that there were no
incidents. We were very serious about that kind of thing. We did not
want to have incidents, and we had to work very hard, without it being
known, without it being obvious, to keep incidents from happening. So
don\'t think that we just walked out on the streets and waved some magic
wand and everybody was non-violent. That\'s a joke. It was people like
me that made sure that there was no violence, but we didn\'t transform
anybody into a non-violent individual. That\'s the biggest joke that\'s
ever been told. But we had a system that kept violence down.

**\[01:43\]**

And we were very determined that that happened, and we were very
determined that certain things didn\'t happen. And we wanted to get to
Montgomery in particular, without having any major incidents. And that
was said to me in their closets and their basements, and they felt like
I was the one individual who could pull it off. And of course, we did
make it to Montgomery without any major incidents.

**\[02:10\]**

We had a major incident coming back, but of course that was not as well
organized. We were so glad to get there.

**Q:** You weren\'t in charge of that security either.

**A:** Exactly right. I mean, once we got to Montgomery, and all the
people and everything, everybody was so elated they just go back. They
jumped on the back of trucks, they came back, they got on, they came
back, they were just ready to come home, and everybody kind of felt like
it was over. And of course, it was night, with nobody really organized
to a point of seeing that the people got back home safe, like we were
going. And I\'m sure you are aware of what happened.

**\[02:53\]**

Q: Then, the next question is in the years, in your perspective of 26
years, the significance of those events, both for you as a black man
living in Marion County, and as an American living in the United States;
to get your evaluation of the significance of that momentous time, a 26
years\' perspective.

**\[03:29\]**

**A:** I guess the only way you could appreciate what has really
happened in the last 25 or 30 years is that I have had to be a part of
now and then. It\'s hard to explain the difference. We\'ve got major
problems, and I admit that, but there are some things now that
physically even myself could not dream would happen.

One thing that we thought would probably be the most difficult thing for
blacks to ever do, was be a state trooper. And of course, at this point
in time it is common to see black men and women in state trooper cars.
We almost could not envision a black man being the sheriff of a county.
That was beyond our apprehension\[sic\], that\'s how serious the
situation was about law enforcement and that type of situation.

**\[04:22\]**

To think of Mayor Arrington(?) being the Mayor of Birmingham Alabama,
the largest city in the state of Alabama, was not comprehensible for
leaders. I don\'t even know if King could comprehend some of the things
that have really happened, he may have, is unusually\--

**\[04:50\]**

We were working for these things to happen. There is no question about
the fact that that was not our goal. But I doubt if all of us ever
really thought in Wilcox, County and Lowndes County where there was not
a signal registered voter in them days, there had never been one, that
the whole county would be run today by black people. Wilcox County in my
opinion, and Lowndes County, were supposed to have been the roughest
counties, or the most depressed places in the world. The people in
Wilcox County had to spend \...(inaudible) money. They didn\'t even have
money. They used some kind of coin, or some kind of stamp. I mean,
that\'s the fat cans, not the\--

I mean, there is a man there now named Bruce Henderson. He had a
plantation, and his people didn\'t have physical dollars. They had\--

**Q:** \...(inaudible).

**\[05:42\]**

**A:** That\'s right, that\'s a fact. And the division between the black
and the white, the discrimination between black and white, and the way
black people were really treated when I was a boy back at that time, and
to consider today, it\'s hard to believe.

**\[06:06\]**

Now everybody, even in Perry County, and until several years ago, swear
that there would be no way I would ever be in office. In fact, I had to
turn out 96% of my people in my district to win. But there were using
black people who mentally thought it was impossible for me to ever be a
part of running the government, in fact, basically runs the government,
and me in particular.

I was elected probably two or three years ago, and there was an ad in
the newspaper from the local editor who said that under no circumstances
could they allow the have nots to run the government, and that was
supposed to have been my group of people, or the followers, myself, and
that all costs we had to be stopped. And I\'m talking about now three
years ago.

**\[07:11\]**

There are a lot of things we\'ve still got to do, but there have been
tremendously\-- It\'s hard even for my children to even believe what
really happened. And especially blacks today who are, let\'s say 20
years and younger of 20 to 30, can\'t even envision what it was like to
be living in Selma Alabama, or Marion Alabama, at that period of time.

**\[07:44\]**

That has changed just that much. We really have a superintendent of
Education in Perry County, a sheriff, tax collector, a tax assessor. And
if you understand government I think you understand what I\'m naming,
and there are several black straight troopers who reside there.

So we have black people in Montgomery who represent us on the state
level from the black belt. We envision having a representative from the
black belt of Alabama in Washington. And that\'s why I could meet you
this morning. We are not determined to have a black person elected, but
we are determined to have a black person from the black belts of Alabama
be elected to go to Congress, and I would be surprised if we don\'t.
That\'s how serious we are about it.

**\[08:50\]**

So to be able to go from that to representation all the way to D.C., in
the last state-wide election, I\'m Chairman of the 7th Congressional
District of the new South, a political group we call it. Our endorsement
two years ago of political people in Alabama, everybody that we endorsed
was elected, but the governor, and that\'s saying a lot. There was no
lieutenant governor, treasurer for the state: none of these people who
was eventually elected that did not have the blessing of the black
voters in the State of Alabama.

**\[09:44\]**

I think if I have to give my person assessment of the strength of the
politics in the state or in the nation, I think the greatest
contribution that blacks have made to this nation, politically, was the
senatorial elections four years ago. I feel that if the Reagan
Administration had been able to change this country the way he had
expected to change it, and taken control of the Senate of the United
States with Republicans, that the direction of the United States would
have been drastically changed; that there would have been many more
Watergates, and corruption. The whole direction of war and everything
would have been different.

But there were ten senators in this country that owe their election to
black voters, and they all won by less than a percentage point of two.
That\'s how important the vote was.

**\[10:49\]**

I cannot forget a defeat of a Republican senator by the name of Jeremiah
Denman from the State of Alabama. Well, Reagan came here himself three
times and campaigned for him, and literally hooked him. I mean, he was
that important to him, and didn\'t make no bones about the fact that he
was that important.

**\[11:16\]**

But we took a senator who was not that dear to us, who had really not
been very kind of blacks, but that was not the two of them, and we
wanted to be sure that Reagan\'s man was not elected, and by less than a
percentage point, Sherby(?) met Jeremiah Denton. And of course, Jeremiah
Denton had been a man who had been to Washington, and changed the
regulations as to what the FBI could do, along with sell to the
conservatives of their own judicial committee, and had started a vote
for, they called it a witch hunt, to destroy what they considered as
old-line Martin Luther King type civil rights people, and they started
with me.

And I guess it\'s hard to explain how I felt the night when Jeremiah
Denton was defeated.

Q: I\'ll bet.

**\[12:23\]**

**A:** In the meantime, Art Fowler was elected in Georgia, Jerry
Sentra(?) was elected in North Carolina, and some old man Cranston I
believe it was, won by \...(inaudible) in California.

**\[12:44\]**

**Q:** Yes.

**A:** Another one was elected in Louisiana. But all of these people, in
my opinion, was people that were elected directly or indirectly from
areas where we had campaigned and spoke. I used to travel throughout the
United States during the times of my persecution. I spoke in California,
and all over, and explained to the blacks that a second reconstruction
was headed our way, and that the Reagan administration was using his
Justice Department, and his Supreme Courts, to turn back the clock.

And to see the response and electing those senators who later changed
the direction of this whole country in my opinion, and I know you may
not understand what I\'m talking about, but I know what the results
would have been had he got ten Republicans.

**\[13:42\]**

Out of all the people who have been elected, including Mayor Arrington,
and Albert Turner, and Hank Sammises(?) I think the most impact that the
black vote has ever had was on them ten senators who kept United States
of America in a new posture.

**\[14:03\]**

**Q:** How long after the passage of the Voting Rights Act was it before
you elected your first black in Perry County?

**A:** The first black in Perry County was elected in Union Town Alabama
in probably the early 70\'s. He\'s not what we consider to be a black,
he just, he has, he was the color of my shoes, but that was all. He
didn\'t have black interests. So when we speak about black people, we
talk about people who got their interests in black people, not just
their skin color.

**Q:** There is the color of the shoes, and then the sole too.

**\[14:42\]**

**A:** Exactly. And of course, he was elected in the early 70\'s as a
City Councilman. Later, before we got any blacks elected of any
substance, was in \'76; we had our first two blacks elected to County
Commission. And of course County Commissions in small counties are
terribly politically important.

**Q:** Seventy-six was the first year you got into Perry County.

**\[15:03\]**

**A:** \...(inaudible) of any magnitude.

**Q:** When did you elect the black sheriff of Perry?

**A:** In 78. Got a sheriff, and a tax collector that year, and a tax
assessor. And if the tape recorder was not running, that\'s the first
election I had to carry a shotgun. We was just simply determined not to
allow no longer the system to take an election from us. So we all went
home that day, and decided that we were going to win the election or
die. I hate to admit that. But they had determined that we were not
going to have a person who collected and controlled the finances in that
county, and a person who controlled the justice system, and we were
determined that if we had the votes, we were going to have the people.

**\[15:55\]**

And I do admit to you I carried a gun that day, and there were many
others of us that went home and decided there was going to be a shoot
out if they tried to take physically the election from us. That was the
beginning of my downfall in terms of the political oppression that I
eventually ended up with a federal case in \'85 that was called \"A Vote
for All\" but it started escalating in 1978 when we took over, so to
speak.

**\[16:31\]**

We took the majority of the County Commissioner that year. We took the
majority of the Board of Education that year, and of all things, the
sheriff and tax collector were two things that they were determined we
couldn\'t get. And they decided at that point that we had gotten too
politically important and too politically strong, and they decided that
no longer would they pay any attention to the fact that I said got and
get(?) and wore boots and didn\'t comb my hair, and acted like I was a
fool, for various reasons, they finally recognized in reality that I was
pretty shrewd, and pretty smart, and that they had to stop me.

**\[17:20\]**

**Q:** Now we\'ll be moving into the legislation that was passed by
Congress, authorizing the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.
That\'s what our ultimate objective is, being down here and talking to
you good people is. We want to know how should the march be commemorated
by the MPS? If you were a planner and were trying to figure out how to
commemorate the Selma/Montgomery march, and remembering that the Park
Service is a site-oriented organization.

**\[18:08\]**

**A:** That is a difficult question. I would like to see some monuments
that would be standing forever, of some kind, what type it is, I don\'t
know, but I think some kind of way that a trail should be dedicated, or
named, with markers of some kind that this stage of history would never
be forgotten.

And one of the things I\'ve heard that you all was considering, and that
was, there is a main highway 80 that\'s a historical trail, and for all
practical purposes, I don\'t know of no other area that could be
designated that would have more effect, or more, that had more
significance, than Highway 80.

Highway 80 is where we got beat on Bloody Sunday, and that\'s the first
time the nation became indignant All over the world, people decided that
this had to stop that Sunday. So that was on 80. And we eventually
walked down 80. Ms. Liuzzo was killed on 80. So 80 is probably the most
outstanding spot that that could be.

There is a lot of importance in Marion and Perry County that most people
don\'t know about.

**\[19:45\]**

**Q:** If you would identify the sites in Marion and Perry County, and
Dallas County, and along the section of highway 80 between Selma and
Montgomery that you think should be identified by wayside markers, or
some type of interpretive, if you were the planner?

**\[20:15\]**

**A:** Well, Ms. Liuzzo\'s spot is already marked, and that should never
be forgotten. If there was some way that the spot of the beating on the
Bridge could be identified, it would be very, very important.

Jimmie Jackson is buried in Marion, and we have a marker at his grave
site, but the church where that march was held that night, and that area
of the county\-- and I\'m just talking about realistically\-- is
terribly important. Because I honestly know that\--

**Q:** And you say it\'s all in about a block area?

**\[21:06\]**

**A:** Yes. All of that is kind of like right, like you see these
buildings. But that was, there is no question about the fact that there
probably would not have been a Bloody Sunday had it not been a bloody
Jimmie Jackson night. And we would hope that some kind of way, that this
would include that.

**\[21:28\]**

Jimmy was the very first person who lost his life in the struggle for
the right to vote. There was other people, but I\'m talking about
specifically the right to vote, he was the first. It was obscure because
it was a small place, and he was black, and you know, but he really was
the first. He was the beginning and the kick-off(?) of all of this.

So I had not prepared myself for that question, but it is a very
important question, and I do know that\--

**Q:** It comes down to more or less the crux.

**A:** Yes.

**\[22:03\]**

**Q:** Would you, since they\'re historic trails, there are going to be
branches. When you drove down with your caravan from Marion that day, I
take it the caravan, would you describe your recollections of where you
formed up in Marion to assemble, and drove down, and where you assembled
here?

**\[22:31\]**

Well there is no question about the fact we started at the Zion
Methodist Church. That\'s the same church where all the meetings were,
because that was the only place we could meet. And we organized our
caravan, and we traveled 14. And by the way, we haven\'t made a big
issue out of that yet, we will, but we have been fortunate enough to
have Highway 14 declared in honor of Martin King from the Dallas County
Line to the Pickens County line, and that in reality covers what we
consider the whole black belt. It takes in Dallas County, Perry County,
Hale County, and Greene County.

The only other counties that had a larger effect upon on what happened
in them days was Lowndes and Wilcox. And now that resolution was passed
this year in the state legislator, legislation, by Hank Sanders. And we
planned to make that announcement later when he decided to run for
Congess.

**\[23:35\]**

But that\'s going to be the longest trail in the United States named for
Martin. And it also would take into consideration those very important
areas that made Selma what everybody heard about Selma. The movement was
not here in Selma alone. The whole black belt of Alabama is what made
what happened happen, and that\'s the part I played. That was the Greene
County situation, the Hale County, the Wilcox, all the \...(inaudible)
doing the same thing they did in Selma. This was a large area where King
himself was, so all the news covered it. But the significance of all of
those places was out of site.

**\[24:14\]**

In fact, I suspect more happened of importance than here, but everybody
just considered this to be the capital, and this is where King himself
resided, but he went into all of those places.

But Marion is where Mrs. King was born. Marion is where, and the
Young(?) wife was born, and raised and educated, and the family still
lives there. And Perry County also gave Abernathy his wife, and I came
from Perry County. So Perry County, it\'s going to be very difficult to
leave Perry County out of that history, or that historical situation.
That\'s the Jimmie Jackson, where he come from.

**\[25:03\]**

I don\'t like to have to say so myself, but I was the state director for
Martin King for seven years. I ran the State of Alabama where all of
this activity went on. And nobody else says that loud and clear, and I
guess I have to start saying that. But it\'s kind of hard to imagine me
coordinating the state of Alabama for Martin King, but that\'s exactly
what happened, and I did that from \'65 to \'72. And I\'m not at all
ashamed of what happened.

**\[25:40\]**

**Q:** When did he make you coordinator, before or after the march?

**A:** Before.

**Q:** Before the March.

**A:** See, I was so full off into the Civil Rights movement when King
came here, he just came into a ready made situation. See, we had already
filed law suits and sued the federal government. In fact, we got the
first \...(inaudible) in the United States from a 1958 civil rights bill
that Eisenhower passed. We got a chance to use those little registers\--
I didn\'t \...(inaudible) nobody, but I\'m just saying. But that\'s
how\--

**\[26:13\]**

Actually we have gotten John Doar used to live in my house. I mean, the
Voting Rights Bill itself was patterned after letters that we wrote the
Federal Government from Perry County. We actually wrote hand letters
requesting the right to vote and saying why we should have. And I was
the individual who John Doar constantly contacted as to what should be
put into the Voting Rights Bill.

**\[26:39\]**

**A:** And this is no sin, and I don\'t worry about that, but it\'s just
the truth. And I can remember that the most important thing of the whole
deal, was the right for illiterates to vote. And Doar had a lot of
respect for me, and the whole Justice Department at that time, and he
finally said to me \"Albert you are an educated man, and I respect your
ability and dedication. Do you actually think that illiterates should
vote?\" And I told him \"Yeah.\"

He was a little surprised. He said, \"Well, how will they vote if they
can\'t read and write?\" And I simply stated that they buy land, they
pay taxes, they fight in the war and they do everything else everybody
else do without the write, knowing how to read and write, so why
shouldn\'t they be able to vote? He said, \"How will they physically
vote?\"

**\[27:24\]**

So I finally said to him \"Do like they do in Africa. Put the pictures
of each candidate on the ballot and let them \...(inaudible) the
picture.\" I said \"If you don\'t want to do that, then let us help
them, like we do when they go to the courthouse to sign for deeds, and
everything else. They had to have some confidential individual who did
the work for them.\"

**\[27:44\]**

**A:** I said and if it\'s not, if their business, other business is not
so important that they can\'t have some person they trust to help them
with it, then I don\'t think voting should be more important than that.
And honestly I think that\'s probably the most important thing that came
into the Voting Rights Act, because illiteracy was so high in the rural
areas, and people didn\'t have, they were so free and everything, but
their ability to be able to assist these people was a direct result of
my closeness to the justice department, and my ability to influence what
they really legislated.

And you may not know who you\'re talking to. I kind of play that down,
but it was a special request that I lead King\'s funeral procession.
That\'s what the Civil Rights movement thought of me; it was not just
the fact that I was a farm boy. That position of leading the mule in the
funeral was kind of like the majorette, and that was a special request.

**\[28:54\]**

They always saw me, I used to be very, everybody looked at me as being
the counselor for the Civil Rights movement. I was that kind of
individual. I was\--

**\[29:07\]**

**Q:** Since you were involved in voting on the political arena in Perry
County, did you have any kind of connections with the Lowndes County
with the Democratic Freedom Party when they\--

**A:** Not very much, to be honest with you. My connection with the
Lowndes County people was only because of the kind of individual I was.
I was an individual who always was able to basically get along or
participate with almost any kind, or any body. And never did really have
what you\'d call the SCLC SNCC fight in that sense of the word. I took
SNCC for what it was worth, and what was good in it, and what I didn\'t
agree with, I didn\'t worry about.

And I always was accepted by them. Some people said it was because of
the first SNCC workers coming to Perry County. SNCC came to Perry before
SCLC but it\'s not that. I was considered to be kind of a hybrid between
a Hosea and an Andy.

**Q:** You were the hybrid between a Hosea and an Andy.

**\[30:11\]**

**A:** \[Laughter\] I could be an Andy Young when I needed to be, and a
Hosea when I needed to be, and that kind of gave me a unique kind of
character. And that\'s what, that\'s why I was kind of chosen as the
state director. I could rise to whatever occasion I needed to. And at
this time I\'m going to have to take a break.

**\[30:38\]**

**Q:** \...(inaudible) with SNCC?

**A:** Well\--

**Q:** And the freedom democratic\--

**A:** I have always been an individual that they could talk with and
was sympathetic to them, so I got along with them. But for particular
legal reasons, or whatever you want to call it, I was not directly
involved in the \...(inaudible) Freedom Democratic Party.

**\[31:11\]**

We, from a strategy standpoint, and when I say \"we\" I\'m talking about
SNCC and SCLC, we decided that we would give Lowndes kind of to SNCC and
see if they could take one county and do something, and we\'d just go on
about our business, and do the rest as a state. And we just kind of just
drove off and left Lowndes kind of, that base was there, and told them,
said, you know, you all can do anything, show us.

**\[31:41\]**

**A:** And that\'s primarily what really developed. That\'s one of the
reasons you saw the Lowndes County in the situation, or the Freedom
Party, and all of this stuff. That was Stokely\'s pet pig and we
basically said to him he couldn\'t take one county and do nothing with
it.

Those days no longer exist. Lowndes County is a very integral part of
the old \...(inaudible). I guess you want a few people you even ask that
question right now, nobody would even consider\--

**Q:** It\'s almost forgotten.

**A:** It is, in all fairness, it is a fact that we just completely took
hands off of Lowndes County and said \"Here Stockely, have it.\" We was
losing too much energy arguing with each other, and that was kind of
appeared to be what he was more interested in, than trying to really do
something.

I have always been the kind of individual who liked to, I was serious
about what I was doing. I liked to really do things. I never was very
interested in this kind of thing, publicity or whatever you\-- I was a
trench man. Back when \...(inaudible) I mean, I was a man who liked to
get back and plan, and stay behind the scenes. And I did that for a long
time, until people finally really realized who I was, in all fairness. I
got \...(inaudible) for a good while.

**\[33:09\]**

But being black and in the black belt you learned to be devious, and I
had been very good at being devious, and was very effective at it. I had
to be an individual who could pretty much have a conversation with any
and everybody, and listen, because of the role I had to play. So SNCC
didn\'t irritate me. I always respected everybody for what they thought
and so forth, and went on.

**Q:** The area when you said that over in the western part of western
Marion there, when you first organized, was that in the church?

**\[33:58\]**

**A:** No, that was in a clubhouse. We went out to what we called a
spokesman club, and this is a little, anybody that knows about black
culture, this is a little juke joint, or whatever you called it, it had
a nice spot. There wasn\'t no church or nothing like that. We had to
kind of get completely out of the way of the system.

**\[34:18\]**

So we went to a little, for all practical purposes, a nice spot. It was
where everyone sold the beer and stuff, and that\'s where we had our
meetings, and for two or three years we got away with that, because it
was, it was not considered a place where there was no church or nothing
like that. So we\'d go in and meet at night, and a lot of times people
thought we probably was just there for other reasons.

**Q:** The Citizens\' Council, was it strong up in\--

END OF #508

BEGINNING OF #509

**Q:** Did the Citizens\' Council and the KKK, did they have much of a
foothold in Perry County?

**\[00:18\]**

**A:** Perry County has always been highly progressive. It was the
center of education back in slavery, the first educational institution
started there, the first black college in this area started there. I say
that to say this. In all areas of this area, in the state or in the
black areas, the more progressive blacks were, the more determined
blacks were to be somebody, the more oppressive whites were.

So the president of the Klan, and the Citizens\' Council that are
pressing this, are the whites. It was very severe, because you\'ve
always had land owners in Perry County, people who wanted their own
homes and so forth. Lincoln High School was there, and it started the
year after slavery, after the Civil War, and it has always been a
cultural center for black people.

**\[01:17\]**

So as a result, the white opposition has always been terribly strong. I
would think that it was probably the hardest county to crack. It took
somebody like me to crack Perry County. It\'s really tough, and it\'s a
\...(inaudible) type of situation. The whites are just as oppressive as
we are aggressive.

**Q:** Like two almost immovable objects.

**A:** That\'s really the truth. It was almost like that steel. I mean,
you just being in that situation\--

**\[01:50\]**

**Q:** \...(inaudible)

**\[01:50\]**

**A:** To a large extent, really. It has been a lot of capitulation
recently, because my people are in power, my part, my consistency, or my
followers, and they, a large segment of white people who left Perry
County thought that we would retaliate. In fact, the 1990 census show
Perry County losing more white citizens than any county in the state,
and that was because, excuse the expression but the term, I have a
term\-- \...(inaudible) was in office, had taken over, and they had
oppressed me and my followers so, until they expected us to retaliate.
We didn\'t. We did just the opposite, and the power structure has been
really dumbfounded as to the real responses that I have made in terms of
the government, and the way we have tried to improve, and go on, and not
even mention these things. So that has had a big, big effect.

But they\'re still trying to figure out whether it\'s for real. They
can\'t quite imagine a person who has been as oppressed as I\'ve been,
who would not try to retaliate at all against the whites.

But in the early 60\'s, the Night Riders came to a specific black man\'s
house, and he left three of them in the yard. And still that time, the
Night Riders have been kind of scarce in Perry County.

**\[03:35\]**

**Q:** I can imagine.

**\[03:34\]**

**A:** But that\'s the kind of place Perry County is. You just have
never had completely people who were mentally slaved there. They may
have been physically but they, they always fought back. Ever since I\'ve
been in the world, and before I came, it\'s just a unique place. It\'s
hard to explain it, but it\'s the truth.

**Q:** Thank you. What is your personal or religious conviction to
non-violence? What does that mean to you, and how did that effect your
relationship with SCLC?

**A:** Well I\'m deeply religious. I\'m a deacon of the church, and most
people consider me to be a real preacher. \[Laughter\] Not, not the
title of a minister, even though I don\'t carry it, but in action, I\'m
very serious religiously. And of course, religion and non-violence go
hand-in-hand in all fairness.

I never did take non-violence as a religious-like situation, I\'ll be
frank with you. I understood non-violence as a tune to do what we had to
do, and I never did try to take it to the stage of philosophizer,
because I knew we would not succeed that way.

**\[05:11\]**

When I taught non-violence to people, I taught it as a practical thing,
because I had taught it on the streets and so forth. You may have heard
me talk to guys who I picked up out of jail and so forth, on the theory
that you can be \...(inaudible), and this is the way we will win our
rights. And I have to admit, that I had to be more practical in my
teaching of non-violence even though I believe in non-violence on
course, but not fanatically, and I never try to impress people from that
level.

**\[05:46\]**

**Q:** Some people consider the Selma to Montgomery march as being sort
of the last great Civil Rights activity. What is your comment on that?

**A:** If they consider physical, like physical activity, maybe. But by
a long shot, the Selma to Montgomery march was just the beginning of our
struggle of our activities, of our\-- All of our \...(inaudible) came
since then. And for some people, for anybody to take the position that
that was the ending, when King died, I doubted there was 10% of the
black people in office, that\'s in office now, even \...(inaudible)
death, and all of the real changes that had to come came since then, and
that was struggle. It didn\'t just happen.

**\[06:42\]**

So you know, people who don\'t know no better would say that that was
the end of the thing when we walked to Selma, but it was the beginning
of things. It may have been the last large open demonstration, which is
not true still. We\'ve had a lot of demonstrations that would
\...(inaudible) since then. I don\'t buy that theory at all.

**\[07:05\]**

In fact, I suspect we\'ll probably have some more mass demonstrations in
the future, in the very near future, because of the economic situations
and so forth, housing, and people on the street, and the have nots have
been completely forgotten in this country. So it\'s a lot of work to
still be doing.

**\[07:31\]**

**Q:** What were your reactions to Malcolm X\'s presence at the march?

**A:** I saw Malcolm X as being an important ingredient of society. We
didn\'t agree totally, but he had a lot of things we did agree with, and
I didn\'t never see Malcolm X as being \...(inaudible) counterproductive
to what we were doing. He had different interests, but his interests
were important to blacks.

**\[08:00\]**

**A:** We considered our whole struggle in three stages, and this is
something we don\'t talk about often either. The first stage was
awareness. Those were the days of demonstrations and so forth, and the
lunch counters. All we was doing then was trying to give blacks their
awareness that they was humans, that\'s all that was about, and get rid
of the fear.

**\[08:19\]**

The second stages were political, because that\'s the one I
\...(inaudible) on. But the third one was economical, and that\'s the
one King got killed about. When they really felt and learned that we
were serious about becoming real citizens of this country, and they were
facing every sense of it, participating in the economics and everything
else, they found out then that King was not just a little old pious
preacher, you know, preaching good news. And I equated that to being the
ending of King when Whites saw him getting serious about the economics.

So we \...(inaudible) get to Stage III, and I consider Malcolm X as
being the forerunner of Stage III. Malcolm X was very concerned about
the economics of blacks, and we were too, but we were just trying to do
them in steps, and we\'re still concerned about it. We know that
politics and nothing else ain\'t going to succeed truly, until we get
some dollars and cents too.

**\[09:33\]**

And we also know that in my vernacular that that\'s the white man\'s god
is the dollars and the cents. And when you start trying to get some of
them, is when you get into serious trouble. And that\'s when King got
knocked off, when he started talking about a guaranteed income, and
every man got a right to a house, and a right to eat. And they said
\"Hey, you know, this man ain\'t just preaching about turning the other
cheek.\"

**\[09:45\]**

And some people might not know that King was pretty devious himself. He
said a lot of things that he wasn\'t saying. \[Laughter\] And a lot of
people got misled by that. King had a real agenda, and it was people
like me who had to implement the agenda. I was a field worker, a
practical man, and he got up and spoke to sound good, and keep the
\...(inaudible) but then the \...(inaudible) to implement the real
program.

King was concerned about getting folks in office. King was concerned
about getting people jobs, and King was concerned about the total better
life for people, a total better life for people. But he had to speak in
such a way that people didn\'t cut him down too quick. I\'ll leave that
like it is, but that\'s the truth.

**\[10:47\]**

So there was no real, and I say real, not a real difference between King
and Malcolm X, it was a just a matter of timing, and we felt that being
a minority in this country, and so forth and so on, that we had to move
robotically and stage-wise to get where we were going.

**\[11:12\]**

You\'d be surprised to know that a lot of us believe in a lot of what
this other man is saying, not all of it, but a lot of it. I can\'t
recall his name right now, but the one that everybody is so fearful and
frightful of, but he makes a lot of sense.

**Q:** Farrakhan?

**\[11:34\]**

**A:** Farrakhan. And Farrakhan\'s real goal was economics. He just
talks it in such a rhetoric situation that it frightens people, but he
says a lot of things that are true. So they all got their place, and we
had sense enough to understand that.

I was told the Gold and the whole Civil Rights struggle was not
necessarily saying the right to vote in that sense of the word, but they
told part of the United States citizenship enjoy all of the things that
everybody else enjoy, we felt like we should be as proud of our United
States as we could. Can\'t top that. That\'s why Jesse Jackson is
running today.

**\[12:21\]**

We don\'t think that we no second class people, or that there are
certain things we should be doing, or certain things we shouldn\'t be
doing. We don\'t feel that way; never did. And that\'s really what it
was all about. It was just, you had to go by it a certain way.

**Q:** Certain states.

**A:** That\'s right. But now don\'t think that we don\'t want some
banks too. \[Laughter\[ If we could get them. And some hundred thousand
dollars Saturday, we could get them. I mean, that\'s no joke. We don\'t
mind owning some grocery stores, if we could. I feel like that I ought
to have the right to sell you some shoes, just like you got the right to
sell me some.

**\[13:00\]**

That\'s what it was all about. That\'s what we was teaching people all
of the time. We wasn\'t just out there telling everybody nothing but you
go get the right to vote. We told people to go\-- People voted because
of that they saw, thought would come as the results of it. It wasn\'t
just to get the right to vote. We taught people economics; that your
economic situation, your educational situation, your way of life, you
would have a better life as a result of voting.

**\[12:36\]**

That\'s what I told them. That\'s what all those was talking about. We
wasn\'t just talking about you\'ve got a constitutional right to vote. A
lot of folks missed the boat.

That\'s why I continue to work every day today. I\'m still trying to
bring the total picture into fruition.

**\[13:44\]**

**Q:** That\'s why you\'re over in\--

**A:** In Montgomery.

**Q:** In Montgomery today. The plan ain\'t changed a bit. It just
ain\'t got \....(inaudible) yet. So we had to carry it on from our own
stages and so levels. We don\'t have a national leader, or man, or
whatever you call it now to articulate it, and I won\'t waiver. At least
you\'re trying to accomplish the same thing.

**\[14:14\]**

**Q:** Very good. Thank you so much, Albert.

END OF INTERVIEW