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Episode #2201
First in Civil Rights
Lewis: While students at North Carolina A&T College made history in 1960 as the first to test the sit-in strategy at a Woolworth’s counter in Greensboro in protest against segregated public facilities, students living in different parts of North Carolina had made history of their own in the late 1950’s as the first in their cities to challenge the illegal system of segregation in public schools. Meet and hear the stories of two civil rights pioneers, next on Black Issues Forum.
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Lewis: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Black Issues Forum, I’m Mitchell Lewis. This season the award winning documentary, Eyes on the Prize returned to public television for the first time in many years. The series highlights the remarkable story of the civil rights movements as it took place in the United States during 1954 to 1985. North Carolina is also highlighted in the series because of the significant parts that North Carolina A&T and Shaw University took during the civil rights movement. Both colleges encouraged students to get involved in nonviolent protest against segregation. Just as the Eyes on the Prize series and other civil rights movement documentaries have focused on many who strive to break down barriers of segregation, today Black Issues Forum sheds light on two more whose stories having been featured in nationally televised documentaries, but are equally compelling and important civil rights contributions to the movement.
Joining me now in the studio is Dr. Herman Thomas, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Shaw University. In 1955 during his youth, Dr. Thomas and his family were the first black family to attempt to desegregate the all-white Swain County High School in Bryson City, North Carolina, in the far western part of our state.
Our other guest is Joseph H. Holt, Jr., a retired lieutenant colonel from the United States Air Force. In 1956, Colonel Holt and his family were the first black family to try to desegregate the all-white Josephus Daniels Junior High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. We would also like to acknowledge that Mr. Holt is the father of Black Issues Forum producer, Deborah Holt. And to the both of you gentlemen, it’s an honor to have you on the show today.
Holt: Thank you for having me.
Thomas: Thank you, Mitch, it’s indeed an honor.
Lewis: Dr. Thomas, I’ll start off with you. Now of course, your fight was in Bryson City, in the western part of the state. Tell us what it was like growing up as a youngster in Bryson City and the educational system the way it was back then.
Thomas: Bryson City is a small city within Swain County, and it is what we’ve nicknamed the “Heart of the Smokies.” It’s one of the major small cities in that area. And the Great Smoky Mountain National Park constitutes most of that county. And so at the time I was growing up there were probably within the city limits, as they were then defined, probably the 560 to 564 people, and probably about 4000 to 5000 in the whole county. And of that number I believe, from one of my little projects in the fifth grade, I think it was, there were about 110 African Americans in Swain County that we could take account of at that point.
However the schools were segregated. We had an elementary school, grades one through seven, one classroom initially, in a wooden building. And then we had one teacher for all seven grades. And then in high school, what we’d call today junior high school, we had to be bused to a neighboring county, Jackson County, which had a high school which was called Jackson County Consolidated High School, which meant it was comprised of Swain, Macon and Jackson counties for all African Americans in those counties to come to that school for their high school education. Of course we were bused, and that involved a ride of about 46 miles a day, 23 miles each way, each day for nine months. That is in high school. Elementary school, I ran down the hill to the school, or either I slide down if it was snowing.
Lewis: Mr. Holt, of course you were in the capital city of Raleigh during your school days, what was it like during that time for you?
Holt: Well, Raleigh of course was also a segregated city during that time. The schools were segregated. I attended school at Oberlin Elementary School, which happened to be right next door to my home. But it was of course a school that was for black children only. At the time I was getting ready to go to high school, to the ninth grade, the ordinary routine would be that black students in the Oberlin section would catch the city bus, paid by spare, to ride across town to attend J.W. Ligon Junior-Senior High School, which was an all-black high school in Raleigh. On my street there was a fairly new white junior high school from the seventh through the ninth grade. It was Josephus Daniels Jr. High School. So in 1956, as I was preparing to go into the ninth grade at Ligon, my parents applied for me to attend Josephus Daniels.
Lewis: And speaking of that, why did they decide that it was necessary for you to attend Daniels?
Holt: I think there were two or three reasons. First of all, the Supreme Court had ruled that segregation was unconstitutional in the public schools of the United States. I think this was an opportunity and a chance that African Americans were waiting for. Now, many of my generation seem to have forgotten what it was like, but we were looking forward to the opportunity to enjoy life as first class citizens. So when that happened, I think I was about 11 years old, and I don’t remember any discussion about it in my family, but when I got ready to go to high school I think there had been discussions in the community among many families, my family being one of those families, and some families decided that they would apply, see what we have to do.
At first there were three or four families, but the other families withdrew, rethought the matter. My family stayed the course.
Lewis: And Dr. Thomas, when did your family decide that enough was enough and decided to take action?
Thomas: Well our decision was made in the-or they made the decision for me, I didn’t make the decision-in the early part of 1955, early Spring. I was informed, and along with our local minister Rev. Julius McDowell, we decided-or they decided-that we should be able to go school in the county where we lived, which was I’d say probably a mile and a half-county miles-from where we lived to where the school was, as opposed to riding the 46 miles a day to Jackson County. Interestingly enough, we had already been sort of prepared for that kind of eventuality. My school teacher had been working with us for the last three years prior to ’55. We had exchanged with students at the white high school-white elementary school then, grades five through seven-so we already pretty much knew each other, both by experience in the classroom, or not as students, but in the classroom where we would do plays and we’d exchange institutions. So we thought it would be a natural transition from association through exchange programs with the school, to actually moving on into the classroom where we would be a part of the education system.
So that’s what prompted it; we thought it would be a natural thing to do. And so we went to the Swain County High School in August of that year, and offered ourselves-with my parents, I should say-offered ourselves for enrollment as students, at which time we were advised that we had been assigned to the school that we had attended the year before. Which really was inaccurate, because the school that I attended before I no longer went there because I was going into junior high school, so the school I had previously attended would not have been appropriate because I was in the eighth grade instead of the seventh. But that’s the word that we were given.
It was relatively uneventful, the situation. We simply went to the school, sought to register and enroll in the school; we were told we couldn’t; we left. But with the support of the NAACP and some other organizations, we were able at least to make that effort, and it, I think, changed the city forever.
Lewis: What resistance or even threats did your family receive as you were going through this process?
Thomas: Well, interesting you should ask that. My father lost his job, but we owned land and a house, so we were able to survive-and let it be known that we were all poor-but with land and home one could indeed make a living, and so we were able to do that. But there was no outright violence that I experienced personally. It was quiet kinds of things that one would do to make sure that “I know what you did, and we really don’t like it but we’re not going to attack you personally for what you undertook.” So we were able to, shall we say, eke out an existence as a family in that community for a long time. But I left. I left the whole area, because I was determined that an education commensurate with my abilities is what I was going to get, and if it meant traveling to Ohio, into Tennessee, I was willing to do that, and I did.
Lewis: Mr. Holt, your family faced plenty of challenges as well, trying to make sure that that move was made. Talk about that.
Holt: Well yes, we did face challenges. It was a difficult period for us. We pursued the effort over a period of about three and a half years, but just as soon as the news hit the newspapers that a black family had applied to attend a white school, it was as though we were criminals. The black community I think, while many of their hearts were supportive, really became terrified in a sense, because they felt that there would be reprisals against the entire community for the stand that we were taking and for the audacity that we were demonstrating to say, to indicate that we wanted to claim first class citizenship in the education arena, if I may say it that way.
We began to receive threats on the phone, death threats, abduction threats, continuous harassment day and night, calls in the middle of the night-3:00 in the morning, 4:00 in the morning-that kind of thing, hate mail from white supremacist groups. My father was finally fired from his job. My mother who was a public school teacher, had one of her checks garnished [ph] for almost this entire amount. I think one historian has referred to this as an economic strangulation tactic. Creditors began to make demands for immediate payments of our bills, and the times, the economic reprisals made it very difficult, particularly when my dad lost his job. My mother made, brought in a higher income as a school teacher, and she had been a principal for 17 years or so, but nonetheless there was an adverse impact upon us, economically, psychologically and emotionally.
Lewis: Do you regret or do you think your family regretted all the efforts that you made during that time?
Holt: Absolutely not. As I look back at it in retrospect, I’m very proud of it. And during the time, while very few people, let’s say at my high school, said anything to me one way or the other, and I’m very appreciative of that, there were one or two students who said to me, Joe, we’re very proud of the courage that you and your family are demonstrating here. And so we just continued to push on. But it was a difficult and very stressful time for the family, and I’m sure it was for Dr. Thomas’ family.
Thomas: If I might add to that, I indicate my family had land and we owned a house and so forth, so most of the folk were agricultural based anyhow, that is, we farmed. And so you didn’t have to go buy that much food. I’ve seen people go shopping with $5 and get enough to take care of the family for a whole week or so. But aside from that, we were not able to really be gainfully employed. My father was never really gainfully employed at the level that he should have been able to have accomplished that, after that. And then he got injured trying to do house moving work, which was hard labor, and was never able to be that productive again. But they were very supportive, and have been. I decided then that because of the strain that was already present, we didn’t get the threat in the mail, you got the look as you walked down the street or as you walked in the store to buy something. But you didn’t, I didn’t get anybody to physically attack me, nor did we get physical attacks. I think my parents did get some threats, but we didn’t get physically attacked. And I think part of that may be due to the mountain culture, where for example, slavery never prevailed. There was some slavery but it was very small in nature, and with my great grandmother who was at that time alive, she was close to probably in her 90s, she died at 109, with that kind of tradition and respect in the family, in the community, for elder citizens, you would not dare attack a grandson of Minnie Parrish, or you’re going to have to answer to folk other than just your other friends. So I think there was a kind of culture in the community that really supported what we were doing silently, if not vocally. But I left the area. And it was wise, I think, that I did for the next couple of years, and I was not really, I think, welcome when I returned, because some of the other folk just withdrew from the process altogether and kowtowed to what was present. I would not do that, and I would not go back to the school to which they had assigned me, which I would have construed as acquiescence to whatever it was they asked me to do, and it was “We assigned you to this, you go back to it.” I said, “I’m not going to do that.” And I didn’t for the next couple of years.
By my physical being away, I think enabled some of the things to change in the community that made it possible for a livelihood to be garnered from that community at the time.
Lewis: Mr. Holt, were you welcome back to any of the schools that were involved?
Holt: I never left. There was one summer, I think it was summer of ’57 or perhaps ’58, it seems to me it was ’57, that because the threats were so intense and because there was so much stress and we were terrorized so much, my family decided to get me out of town. There were death threats against me. And I didn’t learn about some of this until many years later. They tried to keep me shielded from this. But they sent me out town to live with relatives in a remote part of the state for my own safety. And as I said, I learned about that some time later, but no, I stayed, our picture and my picture particularly was on the front page of the newspaper often, so they knew who I was. And I sensed that they knew who I was. And my mother and father particularly, my mother was quiet anxious anytime I left the house and she wanted to make sure that my buddies were with me all the time. So we lived in an atmosphere that might be described as a kind of a terroristic atmosphere.
Lewis: Dr. Thomas, although you said that you left, you went to Ohio and Tennessee, but you came back and you attended North Carolina A&T, and this was right around the sit-ins. What type of role did you play at that time?
Thomas: Well let me connect from going from high school. The high school I graduated from had students in grades 9 to 12, and I went from that setting, which was the high school that I had earlier refused to go to in the neighboring county and was able to be admitted to A&T from that situation. And so I was there as a freshman the year that the sit-ins, sit-in demonstrations began in I think it was February 1st in 1960. And so I was part of that effort like other students when the sit-ins renounced, we were sitting in downtown at Woolworth’s. Every body gathered the caravan to go down on that first day. And then we discovered we needed some structure so that everybody would not be going down and potentially getting arrested all at the same time. So I got involved in providing what we would call today some of the infrastructure for survival where we would work to make sure that our students knew what was going on in classes, that professors knew students were, that parents got information about the status of their child and help find money to bail folk out of jail and that kind of thing. That’s the kinds of things that I did in the background. I never did get arrested but it was by design rather than not having the desire. I would not have resisted it of course. And I connected that struggle with what I had already been through for four or five years earlier with that kind of struggle. It just took it, as you say today, took it to a different level but it was still there.
Lewis: And sort of bringing it closer to now, Mr. Holt, you have been working hard throughout your years to preserve the history of Civil Rights in the Raleigh area and recently you were honored, you and your family, were honored in the Raleigh Hall of Fame. What was that like when you were finally contacted and told of that honor?
Holt: Before I respond to that let me insert something as an alumnus of St. Augustine’s College. We were talking about the sit-ins and I think earlier you mentioned that A&T and Shaw University students participated. But here in Raleigh, St. Augustine’s College students also participated right along with Shaw University students. One of the times when they got along together. [LAUGHTER]
It was one of the most gratifying moments in my life to receive the news that my parents had been selected for induction into the Raleigh Hall of Fame. I was quite elated. And last Thursday night, when the event actually took place, again, that I think was one of the most important, most gratifying moments in my life. Because for so many years the history and the story of our leadership in the Civil Rights movement, in the school integration effort here, had somehow gotten lost and suppressed. And I was very discouraged about that for a long time. And I worked very hard to get the truth out about it and to show just the sequence of events that occurred here in Raleigh in terms of Civil Rights and particularly with respect to school integration. So I was on cloud nine and I still am.
Lewis: Dr. Thomas, you also did a lot of work in Charlotte trying to preserve African American history as well as the creation of an African American center. Talk about that.
Thomas: Right. I’ll be glad to. You are referencing I believe the Afro American Culture Center which was a concept that grew out of research being done by one of our colleagues, one of my colleagues, Dr. Mary Harper, at UNC-Charlotte and Dr. Bertha Maxwell, who is Chairman of the Black Studies program at UNC-Charlotte. And the Afro American Culture Center came into existence in the summer of 1974 as a means to connect academic work with activity. Not so much as an activist but as a way of preserving and integrating, preserving Afro American culture and integrating it into the fabric of the community both at the university and in downtown Charlotte which is where we were and still are. There is now an Afro African Culture Center with 11,200 square feet of space that we were able to with the fund drive in the early 1980s secure funding of about a million dollars and with support from the city and county of Mecklenburg, establish the Afro American Culture Center as an entity within that area. And I might add that my latest understanding is that there is underway now an effort to build a major Afro American Culture Center in downtown Charlotte. So it’s going to be moving to a different location in the near future.
Lewis: We’re down to about a minute believe it or not. I have a question for both of you especially as being pioneers in the Civil Rights movement here in North Carolina, do you believe that the black youth today have a strong understanding or enough knowledge and appreciation for what you all have done? And what do you think this perhaps will have in common with perhaps low academic achievement among some of our younger black students?
Thomas: Let me start by quoting Santayana: “He who fails to learn the lessons of history is doomed to repeat them.” And I think that is what we are seeing today. We have not been able to a large extent to incorporate the African American experience into the educational process and educational system. And therefore young people do not really know in an appreciative and an affirmative way what the experience of their predecessors have been and consequently they cannot appreciate. Interestingly enough, one of the things we were trying to do was make sure that they did not have to have a negative experience. I am not so sure that we succeeded in not having a negative experience because having gotten the other side of a negative experience, namely a positive affirmation of what has transpired. So you ought to have a great respect for self and for history which I think probably is not getting through as well as we would like.
Lewis: Mr. Holt?
Holt: I would tend to agree with Dr. Thomas. However I think that the achievement gap is something in addition or beyond the lack of knowledge of what your predecessors have done. I think that is a factor but I think too many other factors are involved and there are a number of others.
Lewis: Gentlemen, we have to stop it here. It has been an honor to have the both of you here on our program. Once again we would like to thank Dr. Herman Thomas and Lieutenant Colonel Holt for sharing their Civil Rights stories with us today. For more information on today’s topic and to get a transcript of today’s show, please visit us online at unctv.org/bif or call us on the BIFLine at 919-549-7167. Be sure to meet us back here each Sunday at 4:30 or check you local listings for airtimes on our UNC North Carolina digital channel. For Black Issues Forum, I am Mitchell Lewis. Thanks for watching.
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