Monday, December 31, 2012

Daisy Bates Captured in Marvelous Documentary

One of the joys of researching a life is encountering wonderful work by other historians and biographers. In this case I recently had the chance to view Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock that premiered on PBS this year. It is the  story of a seven-year journey taken by filmmaker Sharon La Cruise in hopes of unraveling the life of Daisy Bates who became a household name in 1957 when she fought for the right of nine black students to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
     La Cruise did a masterful job at making Bates human while retaining an appreciation of her historical significance.  I encourage you to watch the film. You can do easily, as I did, by renting it on line for less than $4 or you can purchase a DVD. Visit La Cruise's website to learn more.
     Ethel Payne came to Little Rock in September 1957 at the height of the standoff between Governor Orval Faubus and the students. She met Bates and the two became life-long friends. Payne also spent an afternoon with the nine black students who were keeping up with their studies while the protesters, courts, and ultimately the President decided their academic fate. "It was a refreshing joy," Payne reported to her readers, "to watch this group of bright uninhibited and unafraid kids calm discuss the situation which swirls around them in the angry bilious patterns of race prejudice."
    The photo below to the left of Payne and Bates was taken maybe in 1981 when Payne stopped in Little Rock for a visit.
     "The house on West 28th is a neat, yellow brick rambler," Payne wrote of her return visit. "It is surrounded by spacious lawns to the rear and side. Red roses climb the wire fence. The street is lined with well-kept, modest homes, typical of the solid citizens who inhabit them. They are the friends and neighbors who keep a protective watch over the occupants of the place. Though not designated yet as a landmark, it is part of history.
    Daisy Bates lives here alone with three cats to keep her company. The house is tastefully furnished, immaculate, and filled with memorabilia--the plaques that lines the walls, trophies on stands, thousands of photographs and books.
     Well, it should be for the frail woman, now in her 60s, has as much to do with the changing pattern of segregation in America as any one single individual. L.C. (Lucius Christopher) Bates the man who stood with her in the long, bitter struggle, is gone now. Death took him last August."
    A few blocks away from the street is Central High School. Nearly 24 years ago, it was the scene of violent confrontations, and resistance to court ordered desegregation. . .
    The front of the school looks the same with the same big letters, 'Little Rock Central High School' and the life-sized painting of a tiger on the wall. All is quiet now. A few blocks away, the woman who made it possible sits stroking her pets and remembering the fire storm that it took to bring about change."

Monday, November 12, 2012

Payne Rejoiced at Washington's Mayoral Election


source: Brent Jones, Amistad Digital Resource
If Ethel Payne were alive today she would be incredulous at the sight of an African American family occupying the White House. In her time, Payne did experience a similar triumph, though on a smaller scale, when a coalition of African Americans, Latinos, and poor whites put Harold Washington into Chicago’s mayor’s office in 1983.
     The victory came in two parts: First, he managed to beat the incumbent mayor, Jane Byrne, and the son of past mayor Daley, Richard M. Daley. Second, frustrated Democrats unwilling to support a black candidate made one last desperate attempt to thwart Washington’s election by supporting the white Republican candidate. For a while the slogan for the Republican campaign was “before it’s too late,” until wiser heads prevailed. The only issue with which they gained traction was that Washington had once done prison time for failing to file federal income tax returns.
     Payne watched the election from her post as a professor at Fisk University. “Like so many of exiles whose hearts have never left Chicago,” she said, “I went ape when it was finally officials that Harold Washington had won the Democratic primary.”
     Payne returned to her native Chicago at the end of April 1983 to attend Washington’s inauguration. A few days later Payne told a friend about the experience. “For me,” she said, “it was quite an emotional experience, something I never dreamed of seeing in my lifetime. Far more than the matter of color is involved here. Despite the repetition and exaggerated accounts of his tax problems, he is a refreshing example of morality in public office. He has courage and integrity, and best of all the strength to hang tough.”

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Dinners to Remember


Payne with friends in her apartment.
Almost anyone who came into contact with Ethel Payne remembers her dinner parties. For Payne a meal at her place was a way to bring interesting people to the table. Many well-known people host dinners so they can hold court. Not so with Payne. She was the opposite. Her dinner parties were a chance to let others shine.

She chose her guests carefully and from a wide array of people. “Lord only knows who you were going to meet,” said one guest. Normally more than six people were invited. All selected with an eye to create great conversation.

Food was, of course, important. Southern food, lots of greens, sweet potatoes and the like, were often on the menu along with nice wines. “You put Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima, Maxim’s and the Tour d’Argent all to shame!” wrote one person in a thank you note.

But now twenty-one years after Payne's passing, what the dinner guests remember more is the warmth of the evenings, the good companionship, and, of course, the conversations.

If you want to try one of Payne’s recipes, this one for Chili was found in her papers at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

ETHEL'S CHILE

Ingredients
  • 1 lb hamburger meat
  • 2 16 oz cans of red kidney beans
  • ½ cup chopped onions
  • ½ cup chopped green peppers
  • 2 cloves chopped garlic
  • 2 tbsp canned pimientos
  • 3 oz grated baker’s unsweetened chocolate
  • salt, Oregon, pepper
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp chili power
  • 8 oz tomato paste mixed with 16 oz tomato puree
 Directions
  1. Cook the hamburger meat and drain off the fat
  2. Saute the onions and green peppers.
  3. Add the garlic
  4. Add all the remaining ingredients and let simmer.
  5. Payne suggests serving it over spaghetti.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The original March on Washington


Courtesy of Chicago Public Library
Ask young people about the March on Washington and they will promptly cite the famous 1963 gathering in front of the Lincoln Memorial at which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Forgotten by many is the original March on Washington Movement led by A. Philip Randolph in 1941. However, had it not been for this earlier effort the 1963 March might have never happened.
    In 1941 the growing conflagration in Europe fueled a government armament-spending spree that fired up the economy and wiped out the last vestiges of the Great Depression. But to African Americans the economic growth bitterly reminded them of the racial divide. Nearly one in two blacks in Illinois remained without work at the end of 1940. Picking up a copy of the Chicago Defender was discouraging. At the booming Los Angeles aircraft manufacturing plants, the paper’s correspondent reported, only one Negro could be found among the thousands given work. A plant manager in New York told the Defender there was no company policy against hiring Negroes. “He said that objections to working with Negroes undoubtedly would come from the men already in the plan and that the company did not wish to experiment at this present time because of the possibility of labor difficulties or the impairment of the moral of its workers.”
    After the disheartening racism of the 1920s and bleak years of the 1930s, the patience of urban African Americans was coming to an end. In the fall of 1940 three black leaders met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to seek an end to segregation in the military and defense industries. Roosevelt listened sympathetically but soon after the White House made known its intention to continue prohibiting the intermingling of colored and white soldiers. The announcement coming so quickly made it seem as if the black leaders had concurred in the pronouncement, especially when the press secretary made mention of the meeting.
     The White House vainly tried to mollify the black leaders. But Randolph, the founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, would have none of it. As he rode the train into the South, he brooded over the impasse. By the time he reached Savannah, Georgia, Randolph had a plan. In recent years he had been deeply impressed by the non-violent approach being taken by Mahatma Gandhi in India against colonial British rule. If Gandhi could lead a march to seacoast in protest of the colonial tax on sale, African Americans could be marshaled into a mass action for jobs.
     Proposing his idea first to small gatherings and then finally to the nation in January, Randolph called on African Americans to march on Washington as had Coxy’s Army of unemployed workers in 1894 and the Bonus Army of unpaid war veterans in 1932. Over six feet tall, elegant in gestures, with a baritone voice that one described as being as musical as an organ, Randolph rallied his people with an eloquence in speech and writing that belied his limited education. “The virtue and rightness of a cause,” he said, “are not alone the condition and cause of its progress and acceptance. Power and pressure are at the foundation of the march of social justice and reform.”
    The idea struck terror in the Roosevelt administration. The President turned to his wife, who enjoyed considerable respect among African Americans. With the date of the march drawing closer an anxious Eleanor Roosevelt pleaded with Randolph to call off the march. If the arrival of thousands of blacks upon the nation’s capital, still a deeply segregated city whose hotels and restaurants barred Negroes, triggered an incident of any sort it would set the cause back, she wrote. “You know that I am deeply concerned about the rights of Negro people, but I think one must face situations as they are and not as one wishes them to be.”
    To the President and his wife, as well as to allies such as New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, the planned protest march was unfathomable especially in time of war. But that was exactly Randolph’s hope. He believed the wartime atmosphere could be used to advance Civil Rights. The march, he promised, “would wake up and shock official Washington as it has never before been shocked” because “Negroes are supposed not have sufficient iron in their blood for this type of struggle. In common parlance, they are supposed to be just scared and unorganizable.”
    He invited African Americans laborers and lawyers, doctors and nurses, mechanics and teachers, men and women, young and old to join in. “To get 10,000 Negroes assembled in one spot, under one banner with justice, democracy and work as their slogan would be the miracle of the century,” proclaimed an editorial in the Chicago Defender. “However, miracles do happen.”
    Throughout the spring and into the summer of 1941, no one could escape the build up to for the summertime march. Each week the Defender reported on the growing plans as well as the mounting efforts of the administration to prevent its occurrence. Finally, with only a few days remaining before the march, a worried President capitulated. On June 25, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 establishing the President’s Committee on Fair Employment (FEPC). Randolph called off the march. In its place, he converted the planned protest into the March on Washington Movement aimed at solidifying the gains and making sure the new commission lived up to its promise.
    Ethel Payne became a believer and an important foot soldier in the movement. But for that part of the story as well as what she and Randolph said to each other after the 1963 march,  you’ll have to wait for the book.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Making World Safe for Democracy Except at Home

Charles White, The Return of the Soldier, 1946 (Lib of Cong.)
When African American soldiers fought in World War II the troops were still segregated. However, many black soldiers came into contact with others overseas, particularly in Europe, who did not share American racist attitudes. The experience made coming home a mixed blessing.
    Ethel Payne's brother, Lemuel, served in the U.S. Army and was among those who experienced the personal liberation of being treated with respect and worried about coming back home.
    “Although he is anxious to return home,” Payne wrote to A. Philip Randolph in September 1945, “he dreads the thought of returning to the old American discrimination after he has had a chance to see some of the liberalism of such places as Paris, Belgium, and even some parts of Germany where the German people despite the verboten of fraternization have heartily welcomed Negro troops.”
    By the thousands, black soldiers like Lemuel returned to the United States changed men. It is no surprise that the Civil Rights movement would find many supporters among these veterans a few years later.




Thursday, January 26, 2012

Even Liquor Was Segregated


“In 1963,” recalled Civil Rights activist Dorothy Cotton, “Birmingham was often called the most segregated city in America.”
    The Civil Rights movement made its fight against segregation in Birmingham a model of direct action that inspired other cities, attracted immense media attention, and helped bring about the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
    Ethel Payne came to the city in May to cover the controversial Children’s Crusade in which thousands of students left school and marched. Over several days hundreds of students were arrested, dispersed with powerful water hoses, and even attacked by the notorious dogs under the control of Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor.
    Payne and other reporters stayed at the A.G. Gaston Motel, where Martin Luther King and other movement leaders camped when in town.
    One night, confined to their rooms by a heavy downpour, the reporters heard a loud knock. Opening the door they found New York Post reporter Murray Kempton dripping wet with a bulky package tucked under his raincoat
    “You all can’t have any of this,” Kempton exclaimed to the black reporters in the room, “this is white folks’ whiskey.”
    Kempton's sarcastic remark was prompted by his discovery that segregation was so rigid in Birmingham that the liquor store where he bought his whiskey had a barrier running down the store.
    “There were certain brands of liquor on the one side for the whites and certain brands on the other side,” recalled Payne. But, in recounting this incident many years later, she added with a laugh, “The cash register was in the middle and it didn’t discriminate.”