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| Daddy's assistant pharmacist Dr. Nall |
When my mother took us shopping downtown, especially at Christmastime, it never occurred to me that blacks were allowed to shop in Harvey's department store spending their hard earned money, but they couldn't eat with us in the Monkey Bar. This area of the store had live monkeys and a carousel for the kids to ride. That is kids that looked like me. Neither was I aware that blacks could spend their money in not only Harvey's but Cain-Sloan, W.T. Grants, Woolworths, S.H. Kress's, McClellan's and Walgreen's but they couldn't sit down and take a break from shopping and eat a meal in these places. My childhood experiences that revive great memories for me are not shared by black people my age that grew up in Nashville, or in most of the South during that time. I saw blacks sitting in the balcony at the movie theaters but I wasn't aware that they had to walk outside into a dark alley after buying their ticket and climb a fire escape to get to their seats. An experience so degrading that many blacks refused to go to the movies. Our city busses had been desegregated but out of habit I guess blacks would generally always go to the back of the bus. I remember the white and colored restrooms and drinking fountains. Centennial Park and Shelby Park had white only public swimming pools and white only private pools like Cascade Plunge. I attended segregated white schools until my sophomore year at East High school. Nashville was a typical Southern city but when I was a few days away from my tenth birthday on February 13, 1960 all of this foolishness began to be seriously challenged. A group of black and white college students that attended local colleges such as Fisk University, Tennessee State, or Tennessee A&I as it was called then, American Bible College and Vanderbilt began non-violent demonstrations designed to desegregate the lunch counters and restaurants in the department stores.
These students became the epicenter of the modern civil rights movement started by Martin Luther King during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. They would be involved in desegregating Nashville, which was a fairly long process, as well as continuing the Freedom Rides after they were nearly ended in May of 1961 when a mob of Klansmen ran a Greyhound bus off the road and tried to burn the Freedom Riders alive in Anniston Alabama. The Klan met a Trailways bus at the bus station in Birmingham and nearly beat the Freedom Riders to death after local police conspired with the Klan not to get involved until after they had their way with them. The leader of the Freedom Rides, James Farmer. decided to call off the Freedom Rides but a group of eight Nashville students bravely decided to continue them at the risk of death. The Nashville students were also involved in the Children's March in Birmingham in 1963 and the March on Selma in 1965. The Nashville sit-ins began on Feb 13 1960 and ended on May 10th 1960 when the lunch counters were fully integrated. Until this time I didn't know much about the struggle for civil rights. I remembered when the Klan bombed Hattie Cotton elementary school in September 1957 when I was seven years old. My grandparents said that they were blown out of their beds by the massive explosion. They only lived a couple of blocks away from the school. Nashville was trying to desegregate it's elementary schools in compliance with the 1954 Brown vs. The Board Of Education ruling which was why the school was bombed. Beyond that I was just too young to understand everything that was happening. One thing that I remember during that time was a conversation I had with another black boy as we were walking across 17th Avenue next to our store. We were talking about the sit-ins which had been in the news everyday and I remember telling him that I thought blacks should be able to eat anywhere they wanted to. Segregation made no sense to me then and it makes no sense now.
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| The bombing of Hattie Cotton elementary |
The department store restaurants and lunch counters were the first business establishments targeted for desegregation. The students had been trained in non-violence at a black church in downtown Nashville by a black Vanderbilt divinity student named James Lawson. He ran realistic work shops where students were chosen to act as aggressors against other students preparing for the sit-ins. They would shout at the students from behind pushing and slapping them. The purpose of the exercise was to learn to take all of this abuse without striking back. They were taught the non-violent ideology of Jesus, David Thoreau and Ghandi. This strategy was used to evoke sympathy from fair minded whites. It was hoped that the sit-ins would receive extensive news coverage which they did. A non-violent strategy speaks well for the United States. This strategy can only succeed in a democracy. It would never work in the former USSR, Communist China, or Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Non violent demonstrators would simply be killed or imprisoned for life. These businesses were not prepared for groups of black students bent on desegregating their lunch counters. At first the managers were courteous and friendly as they told them they could not serve them. Over time they began closing the lunch counters but the students would remain. They would read or do their homework. Then the waitresses began to become more hostile. One said " we don't serve niggers here" They began piling up articles on the diner so as to not give them any room. Water was poured over them and the air conditioning turned up. Then the young white punks with their duck tail haircuts began pushing them, beating them and spitting on them. Finally the police were called but instead of arresting the punks the students were arrested. More and more students joined the protests until the Nashville jail was so full and they had to quit making arrests. The students refused to be bailed out.
These students had some leverage with the department stores and variety stores like Woolworth's because blacks spent a lot of money as shoppers. The black community began a boycott of these stores which hurt them economically. In addition many white women cancelled their credit cards in the department stores as a show of sympathy for the students. Everything came to a head early on the morning of April 19, 1960 when the house of a black Republican lawyer named Z. Alexander Looby was blown up by the Klan on Jefferson Street. Looby had provided legal representation for the students. The front part of the house was destroyed but luckily Looby and his wife were not seriously hurt because they were sleeping in the back part of the house. Over 140 windows were blown out of the nearby Meharry Medical college. The explosion produced an unexpected reaction. Rather than slowing down the movement about four thousand students silently marched on the Davidson County Courthouse. Nashville mayor Ben West met the students gathered on the courthouse steps. C.T. Vivian read a statement and after he was through Diane Nash stepped up to Nashville Mayor Ben West and asked the mayor point blank if he thought the segregation of Nashville lunch counters was moral. The mayor, to his credit, answered no. He then added that the final decision would be up to the stores whether they would desegregate or not. Negotiations began between the students and merchants. Gradual steps were taken until full integration of the lunch counters was achieved on May 10, 1961. Nashville was the first Southern city to bring about integration on a large scale. The fight for civil rights in Nashville had only just begun. The restaurants not connected to a department store or Five and Dime store like the Krystal, Tic Toc, which had burgers very similar to the Krystal, Morrison's cafeteria, B&W cafeteria, and Candyland, just to name a few. were still segregated. Also, the white movie theaters were still segregated. Blacks did not have the economic leverage in these establishments as they did in the department stores.
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| Daddy is 5th from left and Mayor Ben West is pointing up. Across the street from daddy's drugstore |
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| My mother waiting on a customer |
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| Z. Alexander Looby's house |
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| The student march on the courthouse April 19, 1960 |
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| C.T Vivian and Diane Nash |
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| Diane Nash confronting Mayor West |
The move to desegregate the Nashville theaters began in February 1961 the month I turned eleven. The focus was on the the Paramount, the Loews, the Tennessee and the Crescent theaters. As I stated earlier blacks had to buy a ticket, walk through the alley and enter the balcony through the fire escape. They had no access to concessions which meant no popcorn, candy or soft drinks. The balcony was accessible from inside the theaters but that would mean that blacks and whites would have to rub shoulders in the process of getting there from the lobby. Which drives home the stupidity of segregation. Black students began forming lines at the ticket booths. They would ask for a downstairs movie ticket and when refused they would then walk to the rear of the line to be refused again. They did this over and over which was intended to delay white people from getting their tickets. This tactic was called a stand-in. Some students even blocked the entrances of the theaters which of course led to their arrest. Finally on April 29, 1961 Nashville theaters agreed to integrate. The restaurants like the Krystal, Tic Toc, the cafeterias, and others were a tougher nut to crack. I loved the Krystal and the Tic Toc restaurants. There was a Krystal on 5th Avenue but my favorite Krystal was the one on Church Street. The downtown Krystal's and Tic Toc were very similar as far as what was on their menu's but the Krystal was a chain restaurant and the Tic Toc was a locally owned establishment. Tic Toc had the same small hamburgers as the Krystal but if I remember right the fries were different. It was tight quarters in both restaurants. Both had long counters with stools lining the length of the counter. The wall opposite the customers had a long mirror. The Krystal and Tic Toc were very close to each other, separated only by a small store named Lilly's. To illustrate how nasty the struggle for civil rights could get, two black students, James Bevel and John Lewis, walked into the Krystal on Church Street one day and asked to be served. The manager said that the diner was closed although it was in the middle of the day. Employees locked the front door and set a machine on the counter designed to spray insecticide. After turning it on the employees locked the front entrance and left by the back door locking it behind them Bevel and Lewis tried to get out but were locked in. They might have suffocated to death had it not been for a passerby who noticed smoke pouring out from the roof. Thinking the Krystal was on fire he called the Fire Department and the two men were rescued by firemen.
The movement to desegregate Nashville businesses would continue over the next few years. During the Summer of 1961, after the successful integration of Nashville's department store restaurants and movie theaters, the students began focusing on the hiring practices of Nashville's all white businesses. H.G. Hill's grocery stores became one of their primary targets. Black Nashville students led protests in front of the stores and black customers boycotted H.G. Hill stores. I worked at an H.G. Hill store at 6th and Shelby Avenue in East Nashville from the summer of 1966 through January of 1968. When I worked there I was not aware of it's policy against hiring blacks but in retrospect I can't remember a single black person that I ever worked with there. My best friend worked at a store on Gallatin road near where I lived and I can't remember black employees there either. Come to think of it I can't remember any black customers. I didn't realize just how narrow minded they were until I applied for a job there in 1972, a few months after my discharge from the Air Force. My hair had grown long and bushy since my discharge and Mr. Vaughn, the same man who had hired me in 1966, gave me a job interview. He was a slender elderly man who always wore a black fedora and a black trench coat. As I stood up to leave he gave me a dirty look and said, "Why don't you cut your hair and look like a man". After serving my country for nearly four years I thought I had earned the right to be called a man regardless of the length of my hair. After that remark I wouldn't have accepted a job from him if it had been offered on a silver platter.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act would finally desegregate most of the South and the 1965 Voting Rights Act would give blacks the political power to bring about change. Once the ridiculous segregation laws enacted by the Democrat party were finally removed the South was allowed join the Twentieth Century. Over the years the South has become the most progressive area of the country in my view. I don't mean progressive in the way that Democrats define progressive. By the late 1960's when I worked at H.G. Hill's and Baird-Ward printing company the old racist attitudes were still around but over time the South evolved from a one party autocratic region of the country into a two party democracy. Something that the Republican's tried to establish after the Civil War during Reconstruction but were thwarted by the Democrats and their terrorist storm troopers, the Ku Klux Klan. Their goal was to maintain the old antebellum power structure. Using fear tactics they were able to divide and conquer by turning whites against blacks. They lost their power temporarily after the Civil War which was a temporary plus for black people. This meant some economic and political freedom for the former slaves for a few short years. By the late 1870's, however; the old elitist white Democrat power structure was able to regain their power and impose a different form of slavery on black people. It was called Jim Crow, or segregation. It lasted until the 1960's.
There would be the Freedom Rides in the Summer of 1961 primarily driven by the Nashville student movement. The Albany Movement in Albany Georgia, the push for voting rights in the deep South led by people like Bob Moses, the Birmingham Chidren's March, the March on Selma Alabama for voting rights and numerous non-violent demonstrations all over the country. Black's were jailed and imprisoned for trying to use white restrooms, trying to eat in white restaurants and trying to vote. Some of the Freedom Riders spent over a month in Mississippi's notorious Parchman prison for trying to use the white restroom in a Mississippi bus station. Many blacks and whites were brutally beaten, injured, maimed and killed during these years. These non violent protesters stood before all white Democrat judges and juries. They were convicted by them and sent to jail by them. While their white attackers were let off. Police stood by in Southern cities while protesters were beaten by white mobs. They arrested the protesters instead of the mob who were the real law breakers. The South was a one party region controlled by the Democrats. Southern politicians turned whites against blacks by fear mongering and race baiting. They played on white fears using stereotypes of black people. This race baiting and division not only was oppressive to black people but to whites. Poor white people were oppressed although they didn't always realize it. Poll taxes were used to keep both blacks and poor whites from voting for years. The only difference was that a white person could get an exemption if he could prove that he had an ancestor that voted prior to the Civil War. There were no exemptions for blacks. In 1964 the Twenty-Fourth amendment prohibited the use of poll taxes for federal elections. Five states enforced payment of poll taxes for state elections until 1966, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional. The South was a poor and backward region until the oppressive anti-black laws were abolished in the 1960's and the Democrat hold on the South was broken by Republican advances in the 1990's. As a region we finally became a democracy. Northern and foreign industries found the new South a great area to expand into improving the socioeconomic condition of both blacks and whites. Martin Luther King once said that the day blacks gained their freedom the whites would gain theirs and no truer words were ever spoken.
Fast forward to America in 2023. The Democrat party is the party that still oppresses black and white people but in a different way. Prior to the Civil War blacks were the Democrats source of free labor and from the end of the Civil War to the 1960's cheap labor with no political power. The party was run by a small group of wealthy elitists intent on entrenching their power and wealth. Their power and wealth was made possible by the exploitation of the black and poor white population. Nothing has changed in that regard. Although more blacks have economic mobility and the right to vote many blacks are in essence still living the life of a poor sharecropper on Democrat plantations in the inner city areas of large Democrat urban plantations like Detroit, Washington D.C., Baltimore, New York City, Kansas City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Memphis, and Nashville. Hispanic barrios of large cities and Indian reservations can also be included. The Democrat party is still race baiting but it is not only being directed at it's white constituency but it is being directed toward it's new black constituency to keep them in line. The Democrats spread hatred, fear and division the same as they did in the old South. People like "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, Theodore Bilbo, Cotton Ed Smith, Ross Barnett, Lester Maddox, and George Wallace just to name a few were good at it in the old South. Wallace was considered a moderate on race until he was defeated in the Alabama gubernatorial race of 1958 by John Patterson who had been endorsed by the Klan. Wallace was quoted as saying after that loss " I will never be outniggered again" and he wasn't. He was elected governor in 1962 proudly proclaiming in his inaugural address I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever. Today's version of the old race baiters are Bill and Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, AOC and the list is endless. I firmly believe that America could overcome any lingering racial problems if we could wave a magic wand and make these Democrat race baiters and fear mongers disappear. It wont stop, however; because it helps them become richer and more powerful.
I have shared with the reader my perspective as a white child growing up in a racially segregated Southern city and the fact that Nashville played a huge role in the modern civil rights movement. One could almost argue that it was the epicenter of the movement. Although I am not happy that the hometown that I love once oppressed black people I am proud of the fact that we were able to bring about positive change with less animosity and bloodshed than cities like Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma Alabama and Jackson Mississippi. Unbelievable change occurred in the first 18 years of my life. I began my secondary education in a segregated all white Martha Vaught elementary school and graduated from an integrated East Nashville High school. When I was born blacks couldn't eat at the same places I would be able to eat at. They could not drink from the same water fountains as I could, go to the same restrooms, stay in the same motels, go to the zoo on the same days that I did, and swim in the same swimming pools. By the time that I graduated from high school most of that nonsense was a thing of that past in Nashville. Some of it held on a little longer in other parts of the South. Although the Democrats have changed tactics in many ways we have come full circle. Their oppression is now based or ideology as much skin color. If you are white, black, hispanic, asian, homosexual, transgender, or a woman you are a protected class as long as you vote Democrat. If you are a Republican or Conservative straight white person, black person, hispanic, asian, or homosexual you are deplorable. God have mercy on you if you are a Trump supporter.
When I was a child a black person could not expect to receive justice under the Democrat legal system in the South. There was a two tiered justice system. One for whites and one for blacks. Today, a conservative or Republican cannot hope to receive a fair trial in New York City, Washington D.C. Chicago, San Francisco Los Angeles, St. Louis, or Atlanta just to name a few Democrat managed cities. Donald Trump cannot get a fair trial in any of these cities. A Democrat can get away with murder while a Republican, or a Conservative, will be prosecuted for spitting on the sidewalk. Bill and Hillary Clinton should never see the light of day for their crimes over the years but they are rewarded for them instead. The same can be said about Joe Biden. There is enough evidence on Hunters laptop to send Joe to prison for the rest of his sorry life. The same could be said of many if not most Democrats. During the George Floyd riots of 2020 I was reminded of the old Democrat South when city governments would order their police departments to stand down giving the Klan time to have their way with civil rights protestors. The Klan, which was an arm of the Democrat party since the end of the Civil War burned down black churches, terrorized people, lynched blacks, white Republican's, and set off bombs, killing and maiming thousands over the years. The Democrats modern version of the Klan, Antifa and BLM burned down cities terrorizing and killing people all over the country. Blacks were dehumanized by the Democrat party in the past and now they are trying to dehumanize Conservatives. We are the deplorables and made to feel like criminals because of our beliefs. So called MAGA supporters are compared to terrorists. Blacks in the South were victimized just for the color of their skin. Before you can abuse or kill people you must first dehumanize them. This is what the Democrat party did to Blacks during slavery and segregation. What Hitler did to the Jews, what Stalin did to the Kulaks. It is also what the Democrat party has done to unborn babies in the womb. Abortion has killed many more people than Hitler or Stalin. Those of us who still believe in God, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of rights describes the modern day Conservative and patriot but we are being dehumanized by the Communist left.
Another way that the Democrats can be compared with their racial history in the South is how they are silencing people today through various forms of intimidation. Black adults were afraid to speak out or to even bring unnecessary attention to themselves during slavery and segregation. It was totally understandable. During the antebellum period you could be whipped or sold down river if you were a slave, separating you from your family and loved ones. This punishment was dreaded worse than whippings. Free blacks had very few rights either and they tended to lie low. During the post Civil War years of segregation if you spoke out, or joined a protest, you could lose your job as a gardener, house servant, maid, and laborer. If you were a black professional such as a teacher or doctor you could also lose your job or even worse you could end up on a chain gang, or be lynched. Blacks would simply disappear and never be seen again. When Martin Luther King joined the Birmingham movement in 1963 to desegregate the cities restaurant's the movement became known as the Children's March. They used children because their parents had too much to lose. So the children of Birmingham acted in their parents stead. Bull Connor turned fire hoses on them and attacked them with dogs. This in turn led to Kennedy proposing a civil rights bill which would only become law after his assassination.
Today, people on the right are being coerced into silence much like black people were then. What the Democrats are doing today is partly racial. Critical Race Theory, that is being taught in our schools, enforced as part of corporate policy in many businesses and taught in our military considers the white race to be perpetually flawed. This theory teaches the same thing about the white race that that black Muslim leaders such as Elijah Muhammad taught and Louis Farrakhan teaches today. That the white race is the blue eyed devil and it cannot be redeemed. CRT teaches the same thing but it uses fancier words. It is also partly ideological because as I have said if you are black, homosexual, transsexual, or a woman, you are identified as a white supremacist if you reject the Democrat narrative. People of color such as Candace Owens, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Jesse Lee Peterson, Nikki Haley, Dinesh D'Souza, and Vivek Ramaswamy are all white supremacists. The last three are American's of Indian descent. When Larry Elder ran for governor in California he was called the black face of white supremacy. No, for the most we haven't reached the levels of violence used against black people in the South but if the we become a one party nation like the solid South became during the years of slavery and segregation we could end up virtual slaves. Republican's and Conservatives are afraid to express their political opinions at work, or in public. We are constantly seeing Conservatives attacked in public or on Youtube for simply wearing a MAGA hat or a MAGA shirt. People are afraid to put bumper stickers on their cars expressing Conservative views. We watch fascist Democrat terror groups, such as Antifa, and Black Lives Matter attacking Conservative people, injuring and killing them. January 6th and the treatment of those involved in was a message sent to Conservatives that if you dare show dissent toward this regime you can be arrested and placed in an American gulag to waste away and be forgotten. I refuse to be silenced because for me death is preferable to living as a neutered slave.
I am in no way comparing Trump to Christ or to any Conservative political movement but I am reminded of what Jesus said in Luke. Conservatives stand for logic and truth. Much of our stand today is based on biblical principles. We are fighting against demonic forces in America today. Slavery and segregation were demonic championed by the Democrat party. Radical trans rights, the radical homosexual agenda, radical feminism, and black nationalism are demonic Communist demonic ideas being pushed by the Democrats today. Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Luke 21: 12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life. I began this article relating the things that I experienced as a child and the South that I lived in when the Democrats oppressed a whole class of people. Even though I wasn't directly impacted by that oppression. Expanding on what I said earlier, America could thrive and prosper if it were possible to wave a magic wand and eliminate the Democrat Party and worldwide Communist party. That is not possible but we must never allow these people to silence us and we must fight them to the bitter end. Never forget, that regardless of what happens God is always in control. Deuteronomy 32:35 - Vengeance is mine, and recompense ... It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In ... time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near.
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