Oral History Interview with Nancy Johnson

BETSY BRINSON: Today is March 18, 1999 and this is an interview with Nancy Johnson in Harlan, Kentucky at her residence and the interviewer is Betsy Brinson.

BRINSON: Thank you, Ms. Johnson, for talking to me this morning. Your name was given to me by a gentleman whom I don’t know named Mike Hale who passed it on to Sharon Jackson at the Council for Postsecondary Education in Frankfort. Who is Mike Hale?

NANCY JOHNSON: Mike used to live here in Harlan, and then he, uh, relocated in Lexington. But he grew up here in Harlan.

BRINSON: I see. So that’s how he knows people back here?

JOHNSON: Yeah. Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay. Uh, let’s start by telling—why don’t you tell me when and where you were born?

JOHNSON: I was born here in Harlan.

BRINSON: Okay. In what year?

JOHNSON: Nineteen thirty-one.

BRINSON: Nineteen thirty-one. So that makes you sixty-eight?

JOHNSON: Eight. Uh-hmm

BRINSON: Okay. Can you . . .?

JOHNSON: Sixty-seven. I’ll be sixty-eight in October.

BRINSON: Can you describe—tell me how your family came to these parts.

JOHNSON: My, uh—well, they were natives of Harlan also. But, uh, my daddy’s ancestors were Indians, and, uh, my mother’s ancestors were Caucasians. And, uh, so they—I don’t know how they, how my dad’s people got into the area or anything like that but, uh . . .

BRINSON: Do you know what tribe your father’s family comes from?

JOHNSON: Cherokee.

BRINSON: Cherokee. So maybe out of North Carolina, some point came over here.

JOHNSON: He doesn’t really know—he didn’t know much about his family because his mother died when he was a little boy; and his dad left the family, and they never saw him anymore so . . . He just walked away one day and never came back.

BRINSON: Okay. And your mother is Cau--she’s not living at this point I take it?

JOHNSON: No, neither of my parents are living.

BRINSON: Okay. She was Caucasian . . ?

JOHNSON: No, her ancestors were.

BRINSON: Her ancestors were. And what about your mother?

JOHNSON: No, my mother was Negro.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: On my granddaddy’s side, my mother’s daddy, they were Caucasian.

BRINSON: Okay. And do you have any idea how they got to this area?

JOHNSON: No.

BRINSON: And did your mother grow up here?

JOHNSON: My mother grew up here, uh-hmm. You’ll drive through the community where she and papa grew up. Uh, going to Abingdon, there’s a place called Cranks. It’s probably about thirteen miles from here.

BRINSON: How do you spell that?

JOHNSON: C-r-a-n-k-s.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: And, uh, as you—you’ll go through--the first little mountain that you go over, that’s-- when you reach the other side of that little mountain, you’ll be in Cranks. And, uh, about maybe a half-mile or something like that after you cross that little mountain, there’ll be a road that goes to the left. And it’s up in that road where my parents grew up.

BRINSON: Okay. So what was life like for you growing up here? Can you tell me a little bit about your education? Do you have any brothers and sisters?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. I grew up—I was born in a place called Lynn Hollow. We didn’t have any electricity, no running water; uh, nobody in that community did. And we were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor. And, uh, I attended school at, and graduated from, Rosenwald High School, but I had an interlude in there during the seventh and eighth grades where I, uh, went to a little one-room school out at Kitts. And, uh, when I was in the seventh grade . . .

BRINSON: It’s out of town, Kitts?

JOHNSON: Yeah, little community. It was a little mining camp.

BRINSON: Is it K-I-D . . .?

JOHNSON: K-I-T-T . . .

BRINSON: T-T?

JOHNSON: -S, uh-huh.

BRINSON: Excuse me. I ask you for spelling of these because . . .

JOHNSON: That’s all right.

BRINSON: . . . when we transcribe them, sometimes the transcriber won’t know how to spell it.

JOHNSON: That’s all right. But when I was in the seventh grade, that’s when I decided that I was going to college someday because it was a rare thing for black kids to go to college. And, uh, but, uh, my teacher told us how she went to college, and she didn’t have any money so I thought, “Well, if Miss Wilson can go, one of these days I’m going to college.” She told us about—she went to Kentucky State and she said that she didn’t have but one dress, a jersey dress; and she’d wash it every evening. And she said that one day her best girlfriend said to her, said, “Good God, Hattie Pearl, haven’t you got but one dress?” And the, the girl just thought it was a dress she liked, and she said the truth was that was the only dress she had. And I thought that was amazing, and I thought, “Well, one of these days I’m going to college.” ‘Cause I was—I identified with her ‘cause I was poor, too. My dad was in poor health, and mama was taking care of the family and, uh . . .

BRINSON: How did your family earn their living?

JOHNSON: When we were, when we lived in Lynn Hollow—well, even after we’d moved down here, mama did washings and ironings for people; and, uh, papa worked in the mines until his health got bad, and then he had to quit. But he worked in the mines. Then after he had—after he came out of the mines, he was a door-to-door salesman. He traveled by bus and foot, but he sold Watkins and Siemans and Blair products from door to door.

BRINSON: Were those like car polishes and household items?

JOHNSON: Household items, uh, items and, uh, makeup, flavoring, pie fillings and . . .

BRINSON: So when he was traveling, did you—how often did you see him?

JOHNSON: He just traveled here in the county; so he was home every night.

BRINSON: Okay. Did you have any brothers and sisters?

JOHNSON: Have one brother who is the oldest and then I have two sisters, one older and one younger.

BRINSON: Uh-huh. Do any of them live in the area today?

JOHNSON: No.

BRINSON They’ve all moved away?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. I don’t, I don’t--yeah, that’s right. I don’t have any, uh, close relatives here. The closest relative that I have, uh, his mother and, uh, my mother were first cousins; and, uh, he’s, he’s in his eighties now. But that, that would be the closest relative that I have.

BRINSON: So tell me again: you were born what year?

JOHNSON: Nineteen thirty-one. October 14, 1931.

BRINSON: So the beginning of the Depression?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Hard times? You probably don’t remember . . .

JOHNSON: I don’t know a thing about it. [laughing] I just . . .

BRINSON: Okay. Tell me how you—so you decided seventh, eighth grade that you might like to go to college?

JOHNSON: That’s right.

BRINSON: And did you—you just went to that school for a year?

JOHNSON: I was there for two years.

BRINSON: For two years?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh. I was there in seventh and eighth grade.

BRINSON: Okay. And then what?

JOHNSON: And then I came back to Rosenwald.

BRINSON: And Rosenwald would have been an all-black school?

JOHNSON: That’s right.

BRINSON: Tell me about it a little bit. How many students were in your class?

JOHNSON: When we started in the ninth grade, we had a large class; and some of us had to sit two in a seat, but by the time we graduated we had seventeen.

BRINSON: Seventeen in your graduating class?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh. Fourteen girls and three boys.

BRINSON: That’s interesting. More girls than boys.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Why was that?

JOHNSON: They just dropped out. Uh, I can’t think of but one that we lost because of moving; and there wasn’t that much priority on education.

BRINSON: Did any of the boys who dropped out go to work in the mines?

JOHNSON: Um . . .

BRINSON: Or go to work even. Is that the reason that they dropped out?

JOHNSON: They went to work later on but they didn’t immediately. They just didn’t--weren’t interested in school and dropped out.

BRINSON: Okay. And where was the Rosenwald School?

JOHNSON: It was about a mile from here.

BRINSON: Okay. And was it all grades in one building?

JOHNSON: Yes, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Do you remember, uh, the principal?

JOHNSON: Very well.

BRINSON: Can you tell me . . .?

JOHNSON: William Wood was the, uh, was the principal; and, uh, most of us when I started school, we called him Fess.

BRINSON: Fess?

JOHNSON: Yeah, he endeared himself to us and was a role model for, uh, for the students and for the people in the community, too. And, uh, he taught us, he taught us a lot about life; and he taught us fair play, honesty and diligence in whatever we did. And those were things that, uh, those of us who had the privilege to sit under his tutelage remember.

BRINSON: Do you know where he did his own education?

JOHNSON: Uh, Lincoln, uh, University is one place. He was from Somerset. He wasn’t a local man.

BRINSON: Did you have any favorite teachers?

JOHNSON: Well, the lady, the one in the, uh, the seventh and eighth grade--her name was Hattie Pearl Wilson--and, uh, she was one of them. But I guess my love for school started when I was in first grade. My sister Liz is almost two years older than me; and, uh, when she went to school, I cried to go with her. And mama talked to Mr. Wood; and he told her to let me come, that I would probably get tired of it after the first or second day. But I didn’t because that first day, I remember—in those days, they had a little porch, just a . . . and I can remember there was one step up to the porch. And when I walked up that step the first grade teacher came out there and picked me up in her arms and took me inside and gave me a banana and a half a pint of milk. And I hated milk, but I drank that milk and decided that that was the prettiest moment in the world. And her name was Weta May Stewart, at that time; and, uh, so I wanted to go to school after that every day ‘cause I wanted to go to look at Miss Stewart. [laughter] And so I stayed and I graduated.

BRINSON: So you were pretty young. How old were you when that . . .?

JOHNSON: Five.

BRINSON: You were five. Okay. And you graduated in . . .?

JOHNSON: In fact, I was four. I turned five, uh, the next month.

BRINSON: Well, that was young. So how old were you when you graduated?

JOHNSON: Seventeen.

BRINSON: Seventeen.

JOHNSON: Uh-huh. So that was, that was the beginning of my love for school. And, uh, but as I went on in school, I guess Miss Wilson was, uh, one of my favorite teachers because it was she that instilled that desire to go on. But she also, like Mr. Wood, she taught us these, the same principles of: if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And, uh . . .

BRINSON: Do you know about where she got her own education?

JOHNSON: At Kentucky State.

BRINSON: Okay. Was she from this area originally?

JOHNSON: She’s from Middlesboro.

BRINSON: Middlesboro. Okay.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. And then, uh, in high school I had two teachers--my algebra and geometry teacher, Alfreda Watts, and English and French teacher, Emma Rose Pleasant. Those would have been the two that made the greatest impact on me.

BRINSON: Emma Rose?

JOHNSON: Emma Rose.

BRINSON: Two words? Emma Rose.

JOHNSON: Uh-huh. Two words. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And do you know where they got their education to be teachers?

JOHNSON: Uh, Miss Pleasant went to Kentucky State. She was from Lawrenceburg. And Miss Watts was a local lady, but she went to Wilberforce University.

BRINSON: Okay. In Ohio?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. So you graduated what year?

JOHNSON: Nineteen forty-nine..

BRINSON: Nineteen forty-nine. And then what?

JOHNSON: I went to, uh, Bible school. By this time, I, uh, I had gone to Camp Nathaniel, which is a Bible camp; and I learned that there is something called a Bible school. I didn’t know what it was, but there were two ladies there that impacted my life. And I inquired around about them, and I learned that they’d been to something called a Bible school. So I thought you had to go to Bible school to be like them, and I wanted to be like them so I announced that I was going to Bible school and . . . [laughing] I learned—of course, I knew later that it was because they were Christians that made the difference but, uh . . .

BRINSON: Well, let me stop you. Had you grown up in, in a church?

JOHNSON: Yes, my parents were Christians but I wasn’t. And I always attended church--all of us did--but I wasn’t a Christian. But I was just—after I got into that thing, I learned that there was some connection between Bible school and missionary preparation; but when I announced that I was going to Bible school, I wasn’t a Christian. But, anyway, I went to North Carolina to—at that time it was called Uree, U-r-e-e, North Carolina. And now the whole area is called Lake Lure and, uh, which is about thirty-two miles from Asheville. So I went there for my first year. Then I transferred to Nashville to the National Baptist Missionary Training School, and I didn’t like either of those schools. But in those days, uh, black people couldn’t attend the white schools; and the famous Moody Bible Institute, uh, wasn’t accepting Negroes in those days so, uh. . . . Then I learned about Washington Bible Institute in D.C. so, uh, I went there and graduated from there.

BRINSON: Okay. Let me go back. Why, why do you think you didn’t like North Carolina or Nashville, the schools there?

JOHNSON: I didn’t like, uh, North Carolina because, uh, they kept me confused. They taught that you can reach a state of perfection, and I never did quite reach that state. [laughing] And I was confused as, just as a young Christian, and, uh, um, so that was the reason. So it was a doctrinal issue at North Carolina. And then at Nashville, that was the most ungodly school and, uh, especially to be a missionary training school. There, there was an all-male seminary next door to us, and, uh, the girls would go to the hotels and meet the boys. They, uh, um, some of them—not a lot of them, but I can remember one of them getting pregnant and having to leave. And the preacher’s student was the father. And I didn’t fit in; I obeyed the rules and. . . . I, I didn’t like that, so I left because of that.

BRINSON: Was that an all-black school?

JOHNSON: Yes.

BRINSON: I thought it was. And the one in North Carolina, too?

JOHNSON: Yes. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: Now the, uh, the principal of the school in North Carolina, he and his wife were white. But the other staff and all the students were black.

BRINSON: h-hmm. So you were thinking at the time that you might become a missionary?

JOHNSON: I didn’t decide to become a missionary until my junior year at Washington. I just kind of got caught up in it and didn’t know what I was going to do; but after I’d made the application and stuff, I went on. But I was just kind of caught up in it when I first went and didn’t really know what I was going to do.

BRINSON: Tell me, uh, Ms. Johnson, what does the word missionary mean to you?

JOHNSON: I guess I kind of go by the general definition of a missionary: a sent one. And, uh, course I think the, uh—to me, the missionary in the Christian field—now, if you’re going to be a missionary—I think you can be missionaries in other fields but mine was in Christian work. And, uh, so my basic job was Bible teaching. But, but, to me, whatever field you’re in, you can be called to that field and it may not be, uh, necessarily teaching or preaching the word.

BRINSON: Some people think of missionaries as people who leave the country and go abroad . . .

JOHNSON: Yeah.

BRINSON: . . . to do work.

JOHNSON: Yeah, but I, I don’t. I think that, uh, you can be local, state, national and, and—we used to, uh—they taught us a song, uh, “Lord send me. Here am I, send me. I want to be greatly used of thee across the creek or across the sea. Here am I Lord, send me.” So I went across the creek. [soft laugh]

BRINSON: Okay. So you grew up in this area, and you went to North Carolina to a relatively small community . . .

JOHNSON: Yeah, it was a farming community.

BRINSON: . . . and then to Nashville, which was bigger.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: But then you took off and you went to Washington, D.C. What was that like for you? [laughter]

JOHNSON: It was frightening. Uh, it really was. And I wasn’t used to those tall buildings; and, uh, I remember looking out the window one night, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll smother to death here. I can’t get any air.’ And I was afraid that I’d get lost; and when I’d go walking, I wouldn’t turn a corner. (laughing) I’d just walk straight because I. . . . But there were two missionaries here that drove me there, and they introduced me to the Child Evangelism Director, who was my child evangelism teacher; and she introduced me to the first black person. And, uh, so, Ruby worked for the government there, so she took me under her wing. And, uh, so everyplace—she introduced me to the city then. But it, it was, it was frightening.

BRINSON: And you were there how long?

JOHNSON: I was there for two years.

BRINSON: Two years?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Tell me about the school. Uh, the program, the curriculum, the students.

JOHNSON: Okay. Um, the curriculum—you had a choice of being a Christian education major or a minister, missionary, something like that. All of the majors were Christian related. Uh, it’s changed now, and it’s now called the Washington Bible College; and you can major in other, in secular areas. But, uh, I was the first full-time, black student that they, uh, had. And when I—during those days, I couldn’t live in the dormitory; I could just attend classes there. But I had to live out in the community and, uh, just attend classes there.

BRINSON: And where did you live?

JOHNSON: I lived with a family, uh, that, uh--she rented rooms and so I had a room there in, in her house. And it took me--I guess it took me about fifteen minutes to walk to school.

BRINSON: So this would have been about ’51?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. ’51. I went in ’51.

BRINSON: Fifty-one. Okay. You must have been a pretty special student if they had a policy that they wouldn’t take blacks, but they let you come. Do you know what was happening at that point in time there that made them decide this was the right thing to do?

JOHNSON: I guess the Lord was breaking down segregation. Uh, but, uh, they, uh--it wasn’t easy for the president; it wasn’t easy for the school. Uh, some of the people who supported the school withdrew their support. And, uh, the president--the president was George Miles--and he said that, uh, one time, uh, uh, a deacon in a church told him, said, “George,” said, “I wouldn’t let my daughter come to that school for nothing.” And he said, “Well, why? I thought you thought we had a pretty good school.” And he said, uh, “I would never let my daughter attend that school with that Negro there.” And, uh, so, it, it, it was, it was pressure for the staff and, uh, for Mr. Miles, but they fought it through.

Also, I created another problem for them [laughing] because—well, they just integrated me in to the school, and everybody was, uh, uh, was nice to me, and, and yet it was natural. It wasn’t something that appeared forced or, uh, uh, fictitious. But, uh, we had a school choir, and uh, I joined the choir. But, uh, I resigned because I knew that they were going to be on the road traveling, and I knew that there would be places that I could not stay with them. And so I resigned. The director tried to, uh, he, he tried to get me to stay, but I knew what was going to happen. And, uh, when I was a senior, I was faced with it again because we took our, uh, senior class trip in, uh, Virginia. And the first time we stopped to get lunch, we went in a little restaurant; and, uh, I couldn’t sit down. And, uh, so all of the students just—without saying anything, they all just suddenly decided that they were just going to get their sandwiches and come back to the [laughing] cars and eat. And, of course, I knew what they were doing, you know. And, uh, then after we arrived—this was in Lexington, Virginia—and when we got there and the first night we were eating supper, uh, I couldn’t eat in the room with them. And, uh, so they have a little room off of—it was next to the kitchen—and I had to eat there. And, uh, so Mr. Bishop was our supervisor; and he asked them, he said, “Well, let us go in there and eat with her.” And they said, “No, no way.” They wouldn’t let me eat with them, but they wouldn’t let them eat with me. And, and I knew that this would happen so I was braced for it. And, uh, I couldn’t stay in the motel with them so he arranged for one of my classmates, uh, for me to stay with her. Her family lived there, so I stayed with her.

BRINSON: How big was the school?

JOHNSON: It was a small school then. Uh, I don’t know, probably two . . . two hundred students, I guess, or something like that.

BRINSON: And where did students come from? Did you have any international students?

JOHNSON: Let me see. Thinking back, I don’t think we did at that time while I was there, but they have had and they do have now; but I don’t remember any international students when I was there.

BRINSON: Did your classmates come primarily from the Washington area or from around the country?

JOHNSON: No, they were from all over.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Was the school affiliated with a particular religious denomination?

JOHNSON: No. It was interdenominational.

BRINSON: Interdenominational. Okay. So you were there two years?

JOHNSON: That’s right.

BRINSON: And graduated?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: And then what?

JOHNSON: I came back to Harlan, and, uh, I worked with the, uh . . .

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

JOHNSON: . . . Mountain Mission, which is located at, uh, Emmalena. And, uh, their program is to, uh, teach Bible lessons, and the children memorize Bible verses and do lessons. And, uh, then this earns for them a free week at Camp Nathaniel. So that’s what I did. And I told Bible stories in the public schools and listened to the children memorize their verses. And then during the summer, I worked at camp and, again . . .

BRINSON: Camp Nathaniel?

JOHNSON: Camp Nathaniel, that’s correct. And, uh, I was the first black worker that they had. And so I did that. I went there as a camper myself for seven years; and then when I came back, I worked with the Mission for thirteen years.

BRINSON: Thirteen years.

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay. Let me back up. How did your family feel about you going off to North Carolina and Nashville and then Washington?

JOHNSON: Well, they were, they were apprehensive about it. Uh, they would have been satisfied if we had just stayed home because in, in those days, uh, Mama didn’t—well, Papa didn’t either—they didn’t realize the value of education beyond high school, so they wanted us to get a job. And, but, uh, Liz and I, my sister Liz, and I, we graduated together. And by this time both of us were determined to go to school; so, uh, they were a little apprehensive about our leaving, but they supported us. And at the end of the school year at North Carolina, Mama came and, uh--she didn’t come, she didn’t visit me at Nashville because I got sick there with a back problem, and I had to leave, uh, after the first quarter. But when I went to Washington, she came to Washington. She’s visited us at Kentucky State. So she’s supported, she’s always supported us. And she always supported us in school, and she was always involved in whatever we were. But she just thought that when we finished high school, that we should get jobs; but once we went on to school, then she, she was there and supported us.

BRINSON: Did Liz, your sister, go those places with you?

JOHNSON: No, she went to, uh, Kentucky State, and she was a home economics major. And, uh, my sister Stelle went to Kentucky State, and, uh, she was a health and physical ed major.

BRINSON: And tell me her name again, Stelle?

JOHNSON: Estella is her, her real name.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, so why did you come back here from Washington?

JOHNSON: [Sigh] I feel like that, I felt like, and I still do, that, uh, we need to give back to our communities. And I’ve always kind of reached for the underdog; and I felt that whatever I had to give, that I wanted to give it to my people here so that they would have the same opportunities that I did. And for whatever I have done in life, I owe a lot of it to Camp Nathaniel and to the teaching and the training that I got there. And so I wanted to give back to my people what, what I received; and so, basically, that’s what brought me back, and that’s what’s kept me here.

BRINSON: And at the same time, it sounds like you were a pioneer in that you were the first person of color to sort of move into some of those all-white, um, groups, institutions.

JOHNSON: Yeah, that’s true. Uh-hmm. I said that I worked with the Mission for thirteen years, and I did because—and I stopped because the--things changed with integration. Then all the black schools closed. So I was working in those schools, so I didn’t have any more schools to visit. And, uh, so, uh, I attended—by this time, they had built Kentucky, uh--the University of Kentucky had built Southeast Community College. So I attended that for a couple of years, and then I went on to LMU and . . .

BRINSON: What is LMU?

JOHNSON: Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee.

BRINSON: Uh-hmm.

JOHNSON: I went there then and I took a major in Sociology with a minor in English.

BRINSON: Let me back up. You worked for the Missionary, and they gave you your paycheck. Correct?

JOHNSON: No. I didn’t get a salary. I worked for thirteen years without a salary.

BRINSON: Oh, my goodness.

JOHNSON: We just, we had to, uh—it was a faith mission, and so we had to depend upon the Lord for whatever we got. Now, the other missionaries there, they had churches from-- their home churches and different churches in the country gave them, sent them money. And it may be a church, it may be individuals from, uh, some churches, maybe Sunday School Classes, but this is how they were supported. Well, with my being from an isolated area, and people in this area don’t give that much to missions, and so I didn’t have any kind of support like that. So whatever I had, I had to depend on the Lord to get it. But there was a church—there was a lady that visited our camp from Hanover, Pennsylvania. And she went back to Pennsylvania and told this church about me so they started, uh, contributing. So my first salary was $25 a month. So I took a job for a doctor. So I would visit the schools and then when—and I didn’t have a car either so I rode the buses—and so then when I would come back, uh, to Harlan, then, uh, I would go directly to their house. And so I worked as their maid.

BRINSON: For the doctor?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And his name?

JOHNSON: Walter D. Caywood.

BRINSON: Uh, so your job was to go into the black schools . . .

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: . . . and to help with Bible verses?

JOHNSON: I told a Bible story and then I listened to them recite their verses. In those days, they had to memorize two hundred verses and, uh . . .

BRINSON: At what level was, did you have to have finished the two hundred verses?

JOHNSON: Uh, you could start at the, in the third grade, but you couldn’t start younger than that because . . . and they thought, you know--anybody that was younger than that, they might, the kids might get homesick or something. And, but you started, they started in the third grade. And so we would start visiting the schools in September, and then by May they would have to be completed.

BRINSON: The third grade? Or did they have all the way through school?

JOHNSON: All the way through school.

BRINSON: So by the time they graduated, they had to be able to recite . . .

JOHNSON: No, that year. They, they learned the verses, they learned the two hundred verses in that one year.

BRINSON: In the third grade?

JOHNSON: Yeah! From third grade on through twelfth grade, uh-huh. And, uh, then, uh, that was for the first two years. And then the third year they memorized the book of First John, which was a hundred and five verses. And, uh, they would usually—most of the time, they would recite, uh, about twenty-five—I visited each school every two weeks, and, uh, they would usually say about twenty-five verses a time.

BRINSON: And how many schools were you doing this with?

JOHNSON: There were ten, uh, ten schools in the, uh—no, now that I think about it, I think it was twelve schools in the county. So I did all the schools.

BRINSON: And they were all black schools?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. So there must have been a fairly good-size black population here . . .

JOHNSON: At that time, it was. Uh-hmm. And that was, uh, that was an outlet for the black kids because, see, we couldn’t use any of the facilities here. We couldn’t use their swimming pool or their park or anything. So for our black kids this meant that they, they got to leave the county; and, uh, at camp they could swim, play ball, do all kinds of things that you do at camp. And it was all free, so, uh . . .

BRINSON: I’m--I want to back up. Uh, what was the philosophy behind or the rationale, if you will, behind the Bible verse memorization in the schools? Why was it a good thing? Why did the schools think it was a good thing to do?

JOHNSON: Uh, the schools saw it, again, as an opportunity to help the, uh, the children. For one thing, it trained them to use their minds to memorize. And then, also, it gave the children an opportunity to have a week of free vacation and—‘cause everything at camp was free, uh, even the transportation. The camp came--the workers came and picked up the students and took them. And so it, it had twofold purpose.

BRINSON: And did almost—how many of the children would be able to go to camp, were actually able to go because they had done what they were supposed to do?

JOHNSON: Usually I would have a busload and . . .

BRINSON: From each school?

JOHNSON: No, from, from the county. Yeah, from, from all the schools in the county. But in those days we had the, the largest—they just had one week of camp for, for the black kids. And in those days, that’s when they called us colored, and so they had one week of colored camp. So they had grade school and high school kids together. Now with the white kids, they had it separated. They had grade school and junior high and then high school. But for our kids, everybody came at once because we didn’t have as many black kids learning the verses so—and our kids loved it. And when I left the Mission, and, and the Mission, and the Mission integrated, then the black kids stopped going. Those who had gone there when it was, when they had all the grades together, then when they integrated, then they had high school kids together so the black kids were outnumbered. And, uh, you just had a few here and a few there, and they were outnumbered. And then the high school kids didn’t like it without the little kids cause they’d always [laughing] been used to having the little kids. And then they were used to winning, see. And so then they were placed in the situation where they lost that; and they didn’t like it so they stopped going.

BRINSON: What do you mean that they were ‘used to winning’?

JOHNSON: They were used to—see, we had games and we had, uh, we had teams. All the kids, campers, were divided into teams, and so they were used to a whole team winning, you know. And then when they divided them like that and you just had the, you know, five or six black kids and, uh--they were used to winning as a group and not just a. . . . And if you had just five or six high school kids there and then you had over a hundred white kids, see, you were just one little ripple on the sea. And they didn’t like it so they stopped going. And, but now we’ve got more ‘cause I have Bible clubs, and so I have the children to memorize the verses and do their lessons in the Bible club. So they are—these kids coming on now, they, they like it because they have grown up in an integrated school so they’re accustomed to being outnumbered. And, not that they necessarily like it, but, uh, they’re accustomed to it in school so, so, they--it’s not a problem for them at camp.

BRINSON: But when you were going into the black schools for the Mission, there were other people from the Mission going into the white schools under the same program?

JOHNSON: That’s correct. Yes. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And how did you do that? Did you go into a classroom with a teacher’s help and have them, the memorization in the classroom?

JOHNSON: No, we would take, we would take the children out, uh—they would provide an area for us where we could listen to the children say their verses. And, of course, on, on a day like this, the kids would elect to go outside. So I would take a, a chair outside, and we’d listen to them. So the teachers would continue with their classes.

BRINSON: Okay. And it would just be those children who wanted to participate, not everybody?

JOHNSON: That’s right. No, it was all elective and only the children. So from each school, each grade, you may have, uh, two or three or four from each, each grade, see, and, uh . . .

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: So you, you did this for thirteen years?

JOHNSON: Yes, until, uh, until they closed all of the schools.

BRINSON: And how, how about your family during this time? Did you, are--did you marry?

JOHNSON: No, I’ve never been married.

BRINSON: Never married. Okay. And you were able to earn enough living from your work with the doctor’s family to sort of offset your living expenses?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. And then I, uh--but I learned to pray at camp. And I learned to pray in Bible school, and we learned to trust the Lord for whatever we needed. So when I needed a car, then I prayed for one and asked the Lord to give me one. If I was going on a trip, then I would ask the Lord to give me enough extra money to provide it. And, uh, so this is how I . . .

BRINSON: And somehow that would come along when you needed it?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay. What happened when you left the Mission?

JOHNSON: I, uh, this is when I enrolled in school at, uh, at Southeast. Then, also, I took, uh, classes, uh, from, uh, extension classes from UK and Eastern and, uh, I was trying to think . . . Morehead was the other school. They would have extension classes here in the evenings, and so I enrolled in those still just because I liked to go to school. And so I, uh, I took enough classes that I got certified as an emergency teacher. So then I, uh, I taught . . .

BRINSON: On an emergency basis? As a substitute?

JOHNSON: No. No, no. I taught in the classroom, but we were called—if you didn’t have your degree, then they were called emergency teachers. So I had an emergency certificate.

BRINSON: Which is different from substitute teaching?

JOHNSON: Yes, that’s right. ‘Cause I was in the classroom; I was the teacher.

BRINSON: Okay, so you were there for, like every day for a year or . . .?

JOHNSON: For the whole school year.

BRINSON: Right.

JOHNSON: Yes, uh-huh. And, uh, I did [interruption] . . .just reciting those verses. And he said one day one of the members asked him why did he read the same verses all the time. Why didn’t he read something else? And so, uh, we talked about his, uh, not being able to read. So by this time, he had retired. So I suggested that he enroll in the adult reading so he did. And, uh, so—and he loves it and now he can read. They’ve taught him to write checks and, uh—so he’s learning more things, and they’ve got him on the computer now and, uh . . .

BRINSON: Oh, that’s wonderful.

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And what’s his name?

JOHNSON: Albert Jones.

BRINSON: Albert Jones.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Uh . . .

JOHNSON: He’s uh, he’s a real close friend to Mike Hale’s, uh, sisters. They live here and they live near him. And he knows Mike and, uh--but it’s interesting.

BRINSON: That’s nice. Uh, tell me the name of the church that you’re active in.

JOHNSON: Immanuel Baptist Church.

BRINSON: And is that here in Harlan?

JOHNSON: Yes, uh-huh. It’s about, uh, probably about four miles.

BRINSON: Is that the church that you’ve been involved in for how long?

JOHNSON: About twelve years.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: So it’s not the church you grew up in?

JOHNSON: No. I grew up in the Church of Christ.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: And, uh, so I’ve been at Immanuel for about twelve years.

BRINSON: Okay. At, at what point, Ms. Johnson, did you, were you aware that because of your color that there was a bias in our society?

JOHNSON: When I was a little girl.

BRINSON: Do you remember anything specific that happened?

JOHNSON: No, it’s just something that we grew up—we knew it; it was all around us. In downtown we couldn’t, uh—we could go in the drugstore and buy a fountain coke or a sandwich or cone of ice cream, and then we had to come back out on the street and eat it. In the theaters—of course, that wasn’t too much of a problem because I wasn’t--my parents didn’t allow us to attend movies. When we got in high school, we sneaked off a few times and went; but we were relegated to, uh, up in the balcony area in the little dark corner. And, uh, we couldn’t go in any of the restaurants, and, uh, we could--some of them, we couldn’t go in the front door and buy a sandwich. Uh, like at the VTC bus station—some of them, you could go to the back door and they would fix your sandwich and reach it to you out the back door. And then some of them, you could go in and stand to the side of the counter and order and then bring it out. So we were--we grew up with it so from the time we were just small children, we always knew.

Also, in school, um, we walked—see, there was a school right here in Baxter; but we had to walk to Rosenwald so we’re talking about over a mile that little kids had to, we had to walk. And, uh, but the white kids had a school here in Baxter. And, uh, at high school we knew the difference there because the county students were all bused from these various communities to Rosenwald. Now, of course, up on the other end, at Benham and Lynch, they had schools, uh, such as Rosenwald. We had three, uh, black schools in the county then. But, so, so we were, we were aware of it. And when we would be coming home from school sometimes, the white kids would take all of the sidewalk; and then they would push us off the sidewalks, and so fights would erupt because of that. So, finally, the two schools, Harlan city schools and Rosenwald, they got together to work out a plan. And, of course, they--the plan they worked out was that the white kids would get out first, and, uh, so that would give them time to clear the sidewalks. And then they’d let us out. So we were always aware that we always had to make allowances for white people. So from the time we were just little kids, we always knew that it was different.

BRINSON: At what point did you decide that you were going to challenge some of this?

JOHNSON: After I came back from, uh, Bible school--I came back to work, then I was a member of the, of the PTA and the, also, the NAACP. And most of our work was trying to, uh, reconcile differences through discussions and talk and things of that nature. And we had meetings. We’ve had, we had, used to have panel discussions and things of this, uh, this nature.

BRINSON: This was in the fifties?

JOHNSON: Yes.

BRINSON: Do you know how old—how long had the NAACP been a chapter in this area?

JOHNSON: I don’t know when they had the first chapter; but when I was in high school, they had a chapter. They also had a youth group, and I was a member of, uh, that youth group. And, uh, we had--Phillip Fluker was the advisor to the youth group and, uh, he could, he could tell you a whole lot more about what—because he was the one that was actively involved with them. And they, they staged a sit-in at one of the drugstores. And he got him a group together and this caused Lee’s Drugstore--they took the lunch counter out of their drugstore. They decided that they would not serve us, so they took the lunch counter out. But Phillip was the one, was the one who led that group.

BRINSON: How do you spell his last name?

JOHNSON: F-l-u-k-e-r.

BRINSON: Okay. And so he gathered a group of young people?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. Do you know anything about the size of that group or how often they went . . .?

JOHNSON: There wasn’t—it wasn’t a large number. Uh, uh, I know his son was involved in it, but I don’t remember now how many were, were involved in it.

BRINSON: I’m interested in the fact that you belonged to a youth chapter of the NAACP while you were still in high school, I take it.

JOHNSON: That’s correct.

BRINSON: Uh, do you remember what kinds of activities the group participated in?

JOHNSON: We did not, uh—our, in those days, our chapters was more of securing financial support to give to the national body, uh, to help them to litigate. And we, we didn’t—we were not involved in, uh, any, uh, physical things, in those days. Now I remember when Lyman Johnson, uh, wanted to enroll at UK, and the NAACP provided funds to help him in his litigation. And, uh, so we helped. And I remember even in school we were asked to bring a dime to give to that fund. So these were, were more of the things that, that we did in those days rather than staging protests.

BRINSON: So the school actually supported the NAACP to the degree that they said bring, bring money to support the effort to the students?

JOHNSON: Yeah. Yeah, just, uh—they, and they didn’t ask us to necessarily, uh, they didn’t put a big stress on it, but they asked us to bring the dimes and we did. And we had some of our meetings there at the school ‘cause in those days the black school was the focal point of the community. So we met at the, at the school, our chapters did.

BRINSON: How big of a group was it? Do you remember?

JOHNSON: It was never, uh, never a large group. It’s always been difficult to get people involved in, in things of this nature.

BRINSON: But the youth group, for example. We’re talking about ten people?

JOHNSON: Probably fifteen or twenty, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: And do you remember—I know I’m stretching you here, to think back about this—but, do you remember, was the group more girls than boys, more boys than girls?

JOHNSON: More girls than boys but we did have fellows in there. But we had more girls than boys.

BRINSON: Okay. Did you have any fund-raising activities as a group, to raise money?

JOHNSON: We paid dues. And, uh, then when I came back and joined the adult group, we had fund-raising and, again, we paid dues. But we—I can remember we had a banquet and raised, uh, raised money that way.

BRINSON: That was as, the adult chapter?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. Um, did the youth group ever go to any program outside this area that the NAACP . . .?

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

BEGIN TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

JOHNSON: . . . if we got mailings from, yes, from the national group. But it came to the advisors or, with the adults, it came to the local president. And, uh, when we were in, in high school, then the information came to the, uh, advisors. I can remember, uh, one time, uh—and I don’t remember now, it’s been so many years, where the place was—but, uh, there was--the NAACP boycotted a store. And, uh, they, they went to court and the store, uh—but, I—uh, took them to court. And so I can remember we gave money and sent to the NAACP to help them in, in that litigation.

BRINSON: That was part of the youth group or part of when you belonged to the adult chapter?

JOHNSON: This was, this was the adult chapter, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: I actually just picked up a new biography of Mary Ovington who is credited with founding the NAACP. I haven’t read it yet. Have you ever heard of her?

JOHNSON: No, I haven’t.

BRINSON: I was very interested that it was a woman that founded the NAACP. Uh, but as I’ve talked to people who have been active in the NAACP, it does sound like, uh, while men certainly participated, that there were more women members of the organization. The women sort of did kind of the organizational work that went on like to organize banquets or fund-raisers, and--while men tended to be the leaders in some areas. They got the, you know, the press recognition for being the president. In other areas around Kentucky, uh--Danville, for example, almost always had a woman president. Uh, and I’m, I’m .

JOHNSON: We have had, uh, we have had female, uh, presidents here also, so it’s kind of, you know, balanced out. And it was always more female participation. Again, ours wasn’t any different than the, the other groups, the--basically, the ladies did all of the footwork, the organizing and things of this nature. The ladies did most of that.

BRINSON: Okay. Do you remember the youth advisors of your chapter when you were coming along?

JOHNSON: Uh, I remember one, uh—no, two, I guess it was. Saunders--and for the life of me, I don’t remember her first name--but Ms. Saunders was--and then Sam White . . .

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: . . . was, preceded her. And both of them have been dead a long time, but I don’t know if I ever knew her first name.

BRINSON: Okay. And the PTA, now tell me about that because--as a single woman, how did you get into the PTA? I thought the PTA was for parents . . .

JOHNSON: Parents. [laughter] Well, it was but, uh, I was just interested in helping the, uh, helping the school and the kids in whatever way I could, so that’s how I got involved. Also, we sponsored some programs, uh, and had meetings where we tried to peacefully negotiate changes. And, uh, we had, we used to have panel discussions and, uh, biracial and, uh, to try to effect a change peaceably. And so the PTA was involved in that manner also.

BRINSON: So, your first involvement in the PTA was—it was not then an integrated PTA?

JOHNSON: No. No.

BRINSON: It was a separate . . .

JOHNSON: Yeah, that’s right.

BRINSON: And then it integrated?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: With integration, did some members drop out who had been active before?

JOHNSON: Yes.

BRINSON: They did?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. I never attended a PTA meeting after integration.

BRINSON: Okay. Why was that?

JOHNSON: [Sigh] I guess I kind of lost contact, uh--I didn’t. . . . In fact, I didn’t even know when they had the meetings and, uh, just kind of got lost in the shuffle. And very few parents—of course, there, uh, there never was a large number of people that participated in PTA anyway--but most of the people that were involved in the PTA at Rosenwald, they didn’t attend after the school integrated. I think, I think it was kind of—I don’t think we made that transition. I think that was to us—and I don’t think we ever just verbalized it, but that was their school. Rosenwald was our school, and we never made that transition. I remember being at a ballgame at Harlan, and they were playing the alma mater; and, uh, when the students stood, I didn’t. And the lady next to me, she said, “Why don’t you stand?” I said, “That’s not my alma mater, that’s Harlan’s.” I said, “My alma mater is Dear Rosenwald”’ [laughing] So we never, uh--some of us, as I said, without even verbalizing it, we just didn’t make that transition; and Rosenwald was still our school.

BRINSON: What, what year did the schools integrate here?

JOHNSON: 1965.

BRINSON: Okay. And what happened . . .?

JOHNSON: Was the last year . . . yeah.

BRINSON: And what happened to the Rosenwald School? Did anybody—was the building used after integration?

JOHNSON: No, the building just deteriorated. And so, finally, uh, the, uh--they built a new road through there, and it took the, uh, school. So now they’ve got a monument out there on the site. The alumni association put a monument out there on the site where the school was.

BRINSON: Are there ever any alumni reunions?

JOHNSON: That’s a big thing. They have, uh, Rosenwald alumni and they meet about every other year; and they meet in a different city, different states. But that’s always a big time when, for Rosenwald students.

BRINSON: But those are the Rosenwald schools all over.

JOHNSON: No, this is for Rosenwald High School here. Yeah.

BRINSON: Oh, I see.

JOHNSON: For former students . . .

BRINSON: So rather than come back here for the reunion, they go to other cities?

JOHNSON: That’s right. See . . .

BRINSON: That’s an interesting thing . . .

JOHNSON: Sometimes they might meet in Detroit. It might be in, uh, Cincinnati. They meet in different . . . might be in Indianapolis. And, uh, I don’t remember but two times that they’ve, uh, had it here in Harlan. So, so they meet in a different place each year.

BRINSON: In Middlesboro, the black school, the Lincoln School, has a reunion every couple of years; but they always go back to Middlesboro.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: But here--it’s interesting they go to other places.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. Yeah, but, and it’s always, it’s always a big affair.

BRINSON: Have you ever been?

JOHNSON: I’ve been to, um--well, I attended the first one that we ever had. We had it here in Harlan, and I helped to, uh, get that one organized and worked in it preparing the food and stuff like that. And then I attended, uh, one, uh, that we had in Louisville. Really, it was over in Indiana, and, uh, so that, those are the only two that I’ve attended. It’s not necessarily my crowd. [laughter]

BRINSON: Is the--did the, the school here ever write a history book or like an alumni book of any sort that you know of?

JOHNSON: We had the--we just had our yearbooks and, uh, but I don’t know of . . .

BRINSON: Okay. I want to go back to when you were active with the PTA and, again, at the Rosenwald School. Tell me about the people who were active with the PTA. Were there more men than women, more women than men?

JOHNSON: There were more women than men.

BRINSON: Okay. And what about, among those who had office in the PTA? Did you have like a president . . .?

JOHNSON: Yes, uh-huh. We had president, vice president, secretary and treasurer.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: And who, who usually held those positions, the men or the women?

JOHNSON: We had more women than men because we had more women in attendance. But we, uh, we did have a man, a male president. Phil Fluker. I can remember his being president.

BRINSON: Uh-huh. Did you ever have a woman president?

JOHNSON: Yes, most of the, most of the presidents were women.

BRINSON: I see. Just—he was the exception?

JOHNSON: Yeah, he was the exception, yeah. Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Did the PTA have any projects?

JOHNSON: Yeah, we had fund-raisers. There for a few years, we, uh, we had, uh, we put on plays, and the adults did the plays. And that, that was always a big, a big thing, and it was very well attended. But, but we always had fund-raisers.

BRINSON: Did the children come to the plays?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. They came with their parents. Yeah, because that was the hub of the community; everything centered around that. We didn’t have an auditorium. Our school didn’t have an auditorium. We had two classrooms and they had the folding doors, uh, that divided them. So whenever we had a play or any kind of an activity, then they had to open those doors. And then we had a, a classroom—we had a stage that was also used—it wasn’t just a stage as such, but it was a classroom that would be converted into a stage. You know, we didn’t have curtains and all of that thing; but, again, we had those folding doors.

BRINSON: Do you remember any of the plays and were you ever in them?

JOHNSON: Yeah, I was in all of them. One of them was Who Killed Aunt Caroline? I can remember that one to the. . . . [laughing] Uh, I killed Aunt Caroline. But I can remember when we were practicing—you know how some read the last chapter? And some of them had read the last chapter, and they found out that I killed Aunt Caroline. And I remember they were a little apprehensive, and they said that, uh, when I found out that I did the killing that I probably wouldn’t take that part, [laughter] but I did. And I remember one, Aunt Tillie Goes to Town. And, uh, but I was always in the—I was in the dramatic club in high school and so I . . . and I wish we would do it again. You know, that the adults would, would have the plays ‘cause it, it gave us something to do and it brought us together. And, uh, we’ve kind of—we’ve really kind of disintegrated as a, as a race with integration. We just, we kind of lost everything.

BRINSON: What happened to the teachers at Rosenwald with integration?

JOHNSON: Most of them left the county and got jobs elsewhere. I remember when they were talking about integrating, uh, some statement was made that, uh, Mr. Wood would probably be the librarian at the city school. Of course, he was a man of principle, and, uh, I remember, I, I can remember when that was advanced to him and the statement was made . . . [laughing] I remember he let out an oath and said that he wouldn’t do that, you know. And so some of our teachers, before they would be subjected to that, they left and they got jobs. So, uh, this area was really raped of the black leadership and, uh, they have—when, uh, they, when they integrated the city schools here, it was kind of piecemeal the first year. They had one, uh, one black teacher there. And then when--the county, uh, integrated before the city so that forced the city to because when the county integrated, then that took--most of our high school was comprised of students from the county. And when they integrated, then that forced the city to. And so then the whole county systems were integrated in ’65. And, uh, but, again, uh, there was never many black teachers, uh, in the, in the grade school. Alberta High was there, and in high school Tom Walker, and uh, Alfreda Watts and E. R. Gray and that was it; so we lost our teachers.

BRINSON: Four, four teachers actually moved over. What did they teach? Do you know?

JOHNSON: Uh, Tom Walker was, uh, history. And, uh, E. R. Gray was in health because he was, he was Rosenwald’s coach. And, uh, Ms. Watts was in science. And, of course, Ms. High was in the elementary school.

BRINSON: Okay. And so the other teachers left. How many other teachers are we talking about here approximately?

JOHNSON: That left or that remained?

BRINSON: No, four stayed.

JOHNSON: That was for, that was for Rosenwald. But it would have been--it was--the same thing was true, the same pattern was true, uh, in Benham and Lynch also. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: I don’t know the exact number now, but the pattern was the same that most of the students left. Then when this happened, uh, our black students kind of got lost in the crowd; and they didn’t have the role models, and they didn’t have the teachers that took the time with them as individuals. And, uh, so we lost. We lost a lot.

BRINSON: Uh-huh. I know, too, that Harlan and Harlan County in the fifties and sixties had, uh, a depressed economy which bounced back some . . .

JOHNSON: True. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: . . . uh, and I’m wondering how much of the movement of the black community out of the area in the sixties was not only because of things like integration that you described but just that the economy—did, were there large numbers of blacks that moved out?

JOHNSON: Yes. Because of the economy and, uh, and this is still true here. That, uh, black people for most part are only hired, uh—well, back in the sixties, they only hired us when there was a program the federal government said you have to have, uh, blacks working, and then it was the minimum. And you may have one black person working in a job. But, uh, and we still have not made a lot of gains. Now, uh, I know that some of the people like to say, some of the white people like to say that we’ve not had any problems in Harlan County, which is true. But we don’t have anything either. See, uh, ‘cause most of the jobs—of course, here you get a job based on who you know a lot of times and, and a lot of it is family hiring family or friends. You hire family or friends. Uh, a lot of that still goes on. But, uh, they just hire a very few black people. And in the banks--there’s only one bank that has a black person and that’s the National Bank. And they have a branch bank in Don’s Grocery Store, and they have a man out there. But in the courthouse, we don’t have any black people working up there. We’ve got one, uh, lady working in the tax evaluator’s office. And, uh, so we don’t have any trouble, but we don’t have anything.

BRINSON: Uh-huh. I looked up [cough] excuse me, some, uh, some numbers of population for Harlan and Harlan County in the last, in the 1990 census; and in Harlan in 1990 there were about, almost two thousand seven hundred people. But what—how many of those people do you think would have been black? Do you have any idea? In 1990?

JOHNSON: I would say—I, I don’t think a fourth of them. I think that would have been stretching it.

BRINSON: So maybe more like ten percent or . . .?

JOHNSON: Probably.

BRINSON: Okay. And how about—of Harlan County, now--in 1990, it was almost 37,000 total people who lived here. Uh, do you have any idea how many blacks actually live in the area now?

JOHNSON: Um, I don’t know the actual number, but it’s, uh, it’s a, it’s a small percentage.

BRINSON: And back in the fifties and the sixties with the economy and with integration, were more blacks leaving the area?

JOHNSON: No, you had more staying. You—people had to leave, but this is when the mines were booming; and we had, we had enough black people then that we had three high schools. Uh, then we had, uh, probably about ten grade schools, eight or ten grade schools. And, uh, so now we don’t . . . uh, so we’ve lost most of them. So most, and most of their, their leaving has been job related. There are some who would come back and who would, uh, work here but, uh, they just can’t. So it’s, it’s--we’re in an economically depressed area as far as everybody is concerned; and then when you translate that into being black, it’s even worse.

BRINSON: Okay. I want to go back to the Rosenwald schools for a minute because I’m curious whether any of the teachers, to your knowledge, ever went to Columbia Teachers College in New York City to do any educational preparation like during the summer or . . .?

JOHNSON: I don’t think so. I, I don’t think any of them went to Columbia. I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Most of, most of our teachers in this area when they did graduate work they, uh, they went to Union or UK or Eastern or . . .

BRINSON: Union over in Barbourville?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. What happened to you when the schools integrated? You were an emergency teacher at that time?

JOHNSON: I became one after they integrated. For that first year after they integrated, Community Action was, uh, their programs—by this time, we were into the War on Poverty and the county had been funded. And, uh, so what is now Community Action at that time was called the, uh, Harlan County Planning and Development Association. And, uh, I worked in that, and uh, then, uh, they got into administrative problems, and it was closed temporarily. But then, when it was revitalized, it, it was Community Action. And, uh, so then that’s when I worked then in the school system.

BRINSON: I’m not sure I understand correctly. When it was . . .

JOHNSON: I worked in the Harlan County Planning and Development Association as a community organizer.

BRINSON: I see. You weren’t teaching?

JOHNSON: No. No, it wasn’t until—’67 is when I, when I began teaching.

BRINSON: In, when, with the War on Poverty and the new federal money into the area for programs and whatnot, how easy was it for a black person to find a job in those programs?

JOHNSON: It was still difficult. They still hired the minimum of what they could get by with. For an example, the NYC program—see, our agency . . .

BRINSON: The NYC?

JOHNSON: Yeah, that—the program they had in the schools for the, uh, for the . . .

BRINSON: Neighborhood Youth Corp.

JOHNSON: Youth Corp, uh-hmm. And, see, our agency wrote up for the grants and applied for the grants and so on. And, uh, in Head Start we had, uh, maybe a couple of teachers; the best we could do would be an aide. And in the Neighborhood Youth Corp, in the NYC program, they didn’t have any black people working in that. And, uh, one day we had some men from Washington came in so they finally hired one, but, again, it was under pressure. These men came in from Washington, and, uh, one of them was a black man; and, uh, I met him in the courthouse. Our office at that time was in the courthouse. And after I came home, he called me here at the house; and he said that he noticed that, uh, when he was moving around the courthouse, he didn’t see any black people. And I told him that was because there weren’t any. And, uh, he, he didn’t know where I lived or anything but he--they were out walking one evening, and he saw a black lady named Rosie Carr and, uh, Mike Hale’s aunt, and he asked her. He said he assumed since this was a small town that everybody knew everybody, and he asked her if she knew me and how to get in touch with me. And so she gave him my phone number and he called. And he said that he noticed that there were no blacks in the program, and so he said he intended for that to change. So—which he did. And, uh, the next day when I went to work, my supervisor asked me did I know of any black person that had secretary skills and bookkeeping. And I told him that Billie Gray did, that she had been to vocation school in western Kentucky and she did. So when I came back from the field that afternoon, he said, “Nancy,” said, “We hired this black lady.” Said, “We hired Billie Gray.” Now, see, all this time he doesn’t know that I’ve talked [laughing] to these men and that I knew that they put pressure on them and they had to hire, you know. So, again, we. . . . And then, uh, as Hugh and I were out doing community work . . .

BRINSON: Hugh?

JOHNSON: Was my co-worker in, with the Planning and Development Association. He was the other community organizer, was a white fellow. And we discovered that there were a lot of inequities, there was false information, there were people that were, uh, receiving assistance that didn’t qualify but--because they had lied about their income. And we would keep telling this, and I said, uh, “There needs to be--somebody needs to be out there in touch with these families.” This was relating to the NYC program, and I said, “There needs to be somebody out there that has some contact, some kind of liaison that can get better information.” So he wrote a grant, and it got approved. And so he told me that, uh, the grant was approved and that the job was mine--only I never did get the job. Uh, the, uh, the president of the board was also the county school superintendent, and he hired a lady who didn’t have, who was a high school graduate. And I was a college person, but she got the job because of politics.

BRINSON: Did you even get to interview for it?

JOHNSON: No. No, I had already--Mr. Foster? told me, he said, “You’ve got the job.” He said, “It’s your job.” But then, uh, the superintendent overrode his decision; and, uh, that’s what I’m saying, that the only time that we’re ever hired is just when there’s pressure.

BRINSON: Right. Did you ever think about challenging that? Did you want the job?

JOHNSON: I wanted it at that time and it’s, and it’s still something that, uh, is, is an unpleasant thing when I think about it. But I didn’t challenge it. I just, uh, went on. They gave me another job.

BRINSON: Which was?

JOHNSON: Uh, a teacher’s aide. Because at that time I didn’t have enough, uh, hours in secular subjects to be in a regular classroom, so they gave me a job as a teacher’s aide. And, uh, which did not pay as much as the job that I would’ve received, but, uh, and then I, then I got . . .

END OF TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE TWO, SIDE TWO

BRINSON: . . . the program of the Neighborhood Youth Councils. What were they supposed to do?

JOHNSON: Okay. This was basically to provide, uh, income for low-income children so that they could buy their clothes and their school supplies and things of this nature. So they worked within the school system. Some of them did janitorial work; some of them were aides to the teachers; some of them did, uh, light tutoring. And, uh . . .wherever they could place them. But they were placed within the schools. But that was the idea, to, uh, to help them.

BRINSON: But, but the workers themselves were adults. They were not young people?

JOHNSON: The workers? No, they were the students.

BRINSON: The students . . .

JOHNSON: That’s right.

BRINSON: . . . who were part of the Neighborhood Youth Council. Okay. And, uh, when, when you were a teacher’s aide, where was that?

JOHNSON: Evarts. That’s about nine miles from here.

BRINSON: Okay. But you were actually salaried by federal money that . . .?

JOHNSON: No. No, when I was the teacher’s, when I was a teacher’s aide, I was paid from the county school.

BRINSON: Ok. Was there a Head Start program here?

JOHNSON: Yes. Uh, we—when I was with the Planning and Development Association, we wrote the grant and got it into the county. And, uh, my--as the community organizer, uh, Hugh and I went into—we just went from door to door and found the children, because it was a new thing. And so we’d just take one community, and we’d go from door to door and, uh, tell the people. And we had community meetings where we brought everybody together and explained the program, but from door to door we gave them information, too, and got children enrolled. And, of course, now they know about it.

BRINSON: And it still continues?

JOHNSON: Yes. Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: How did you like the job as community organizer?

JOHNSON: I loved it. It was a challenge and it was hard because, again, racism showed up. Our—we were in one, uh, neighborhood and, uh--Hugh didn’t drive and so when we would go into a neighborhood, he may take one side of the street and I’d take the other. Or if it was a community that they didn’t have sidewalks, one of us would take one area and the other another; and then we would meet at the car. But this particular day we were down to Walden’s, and I had completed my area and so, about maybe ten minutes before Hugh did, so I was sitting in the car waiting for him. And two little white boys came by, and they saw me sitting there. And one said, “Ahh, a nigger!” And they took off [laughing] running, and I just laughed. I told Hugh when he came back, I said, “I should have stuck my head out the door and hollered, boo.” [laughter] But Hugh took a lot of flack also. He was an ideal person for the job. And one time we were at Molus, and we’d gone way back up into a holler. And, uh, so he took the first community as we went into the community because he didn’t drive. So I went to the head of the holler to work my way back down. And, uh, when I—I, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, but we had, I had to climb, uh, over some rocks, and I had weeds in one place up to my knees, and grass was up to my ankles getting to some of these homes, and I, it was extremely hot; and they were staging, uh, demonstrations in Chicago, and they were rioting this particular day. But, anyway, uh, I’ll get to that. And I remember saying to myself, I said, “That co-worker of mine casually says, ‘You go to the right and I go to the left.’” And I said, “Look where he’s got me.” And I went through this about the weeds and the grass and the rock, and I said, “He’s probably sitting down there on some old-timer’s porch talking.” [laughter-Brinson] Well, when I got back to pick him up, he just got in the car and his face was red, and he said, “Crazy people.” And I said, “What’s wrong with you?” He said, “Crazy people.” Said, “I don’t care if they never get a program.” I said, “Out with it. What did they tell you about me?” [laughing] And, then, that’s when he let me know that they accused us of being civil rights workers, and, uh, and they said that I should have been up there in Chicago where they were rioting up there. [laughing] And he said he tried to explain to them why we were there, to try to help them, you know, and to get something for their community and we weren’t--but he never could convince them that we weren’t civil rights workers.

BRINSON: And they were white people that . . .?

JOHNSON: This was a totally—this was an all-white neighborhood. And, uh, you had to have a level head for that job. If, if you were a hothead, you could have had all kinds of trouble and stuff. But, uh—and sometimes if we went into a, a neighborhood where it was all white, sometimes we’d have to get our lunch at one of the stores or something. And sometimes they sold sandwiches. And if we were in a neighborhood that was all white and he wasn’t exactly sure how they would receive me, he’d say, “I’ll go in here and get our sandwiches if you want me to.” And, uh, [laughing] but I told—I said, “I know what you’re doing. You don’t know how they’re going to treat me if I go in there.” So it was, it was interesting.

BRINSON: And this—what years did you two work together? Do you remember?

JOHNSON: This was in ’65, ’66. Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Which, you know and we both know, actually, that, you know, mixed couples are not viewed . . .

JOHNSON: Oh, yeah! We knew that. See, this, uh, this, this added fuel to the fire. Here was a black woman and a white man.

BRINSON: And that was just hard for some people to accept.

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Other than that incident, were there any others that you remember?

JOHNSON: Not, uh, not necessarily racial because, finally, the more we did it, then they knew who we were. And, and the word spread around and they knew who we were and what we were trying to do so they saw us as trying to, uh, help, uh, their communities. But it didn’t really do that much good. There, there was too much of the money went for administration and a lot of money and programs; but the time it filtered down to the people, it was lost in bureaucratic, uh, extensions and stuff.

BRINSON: Let me go back because Harlan County has the reputation of having been the scene of some pretty violent kinds of activities over the years. Uh, and I’m just wondering if that’s there in terms of race relations over the years.

JOHNSON: No, our reputation, uh—we got this reputation back when they were organizing the United Mine Workers Union. And this was when my daddy was a young man, and, uh, so the only thing that, uh, that I know about it is, is just listening to Papa and other miners talk about those days ‘cause I was just a little girl. And then, of course, I read Harry Caudill’s Night Comes to the Cumberlands and I learned, but this is how we got the reputation. It’s, it’s, it’s much better. Yeah.

BRINSON: To your knowledge, was there ever any Klan activity in this area?

JOHNSON: There was, uh, there was a little bit and, and I think--and I don’t know how much of it was Klan and how much of it was just white people that, uh, were, uh, segregationists. But we had a couple of cross burnings, and uh, but they never really knew who did it you know. And, uh, and it, and it wasn’t played up in the press and stuff so it kind of died down. But it wasn’t . . .

BRINSON: Did you ever see any Klan literature or hear about it?

JOHNSON: No.

BRINSON: Did you ever know a Reverend, uh, Combs and his wife Julia, in this area?

JOHNSON: No.

BRINSON: No. That doesn’t . . .?

JOHNSON: Uh-uh.

BRINSON: I read an interview that they did back about eleven years ago; and they were in Lexington at that point, but they had been in Harlan County. Actually, they were here, I’m sure, before you were, uh--while you were growing up.

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Still, but I just wondered if you had ever connected with them.

JOHNSON: No.

BRINSON: They were a black couple. Uh, and he had worked in the mines, and she actually had grown up in a coal-mining family, uh, camp. But they later both became involved in civil rights activity. It’s a big county.

JOHNSON: Yeah. [laughter-Brinson] But, no, I didn’t, uh--I never heard of them.

BRINSON: When—at the point that you went to, you moved from your position as community organizer to teacher’s aide, what—was something happening that you had to take a new position or couldn’t you, could you have stayed as community organizer?

JOHNSON: No, see, they, they stopped the program. Washington stopped it. And, uh, then, uh, when they, uh, when it was revived, I was already working. And I doubt that, uh, the new director would have hired me because there was a big, uh, controversy between her and, uh, the president of our board who was the county school superintendent. And, uh, Hugh and I took a lot of flack out in the communities because they associated us with the county board. But this, this lady--and she even sued, uh, the president of the board. So Hugh and I were--although we didn’t have anything to do with county schools, but because the superintendent was president of the board, Hugh and I got linked with him and what went on. And so I’m sure that the only way she would have ever hired me is . . . [laughing] Sergeant Shriver would have had to have contacted her. [laughing] And it wouldn’t have been, it wouldn’t have been a problem for me I could’ve worked with her, but I would’ve been one of the last persons that, uh, she hired. And her husband was a magistrate; and when Hugh and I would have some of these community meetings, her husband was at these meetings also. And, of course, he was appearing just as an interested, uh, magistrate, but he was out of his district. One time down at Blackstar, and it, it was almost like he was trailing us to see if we were going to do our job right. I remember one time--it was funny--we were, we were down there, and Hugh, uh, just had a high school diploma so he didn’t know about parliamentary procedure. So when we had the meetings, then I had to do that kind of organizing. And, uh, but at this particular meeting—there was a lot of people there, place was packed—and they were asking questions. And her husband was one of the ones in the meeting, the Appalachian Volunteers, and, uh, so they just kind of took over. Now, I knew what was going on and Hugh did because we knew them, but the people in Blackstar didn’t know it; and they just thought these were some interested people coming in. And so they kept firing the questions at me and there was, uh--he was a pharmacist, but everybody called him Doc-something; and they would just go to the drugstore, and they’d say, “I need this medicine.” It was one of those kind of things that he’d dispense it, you know. Well, at the close of that meeting, Old Doc stood up, and he said, uh, he said, “Let’s give this lady a standing ovation.” Said, “They been shooting these questions at her, and,” said, “she just stood up here and answered them.” He said, “Let’s all give her a standing ovation.” Which forced Barney and the Volunteers to stand, too. [laughing] So that’s why I didn’t, uh, work. By the time they got it reorganized, that, uh . . .

BRINSON: Do you think that her, her feelings about you and Hugh—tell me Hugh’s last name, by the way.

JOHNSON: Hugh?

BRINSON: Uh-huh.

JOHNSON: Foster.

BRINSON: Foster.

JOHNSON: F-o-s-t-e-r.

BRINSON: Uh, do you think that her feelings about you all had anything to do with race or the fact that you were working together, mixed race?

JOHNSON: I think it was because of, of our connection with the, the superintendent. I think—I don’t think it was a racial thing at all. I think it was because of that problem between her and him, and, uh, so they associated us with him.

BRINSON: Okay. So you went to work as a school aide in about what year again?

JOHNSON: Sixty-seven, sixty-six.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: ‘Cause that was the year that they disband the program.

BRINSON: Okay. And then what happened?

JOHNSON: And I just worked there for a year, and then by ’67 I was certified. And, uh, so then I taught down at Closplint.

BRINSON: Clover Springs?

JOHNSON: Clos. Closplint.

BRINSON: Spell that for me.

JOHNSON: C-l-o-s-p-l-i-n-t.

BRINSON: Okay. And what did you teach there?

JOHNSON: First, second and third grade.

BRINSON: Okay. For how long?

JOHNSON: Three years.

BRINSON: And that was an integrated school system?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Uh, how many black children in your classes though?

JOHNSON: Probably five or six. I had forty-two.

BRINSON: You had forty-two students in a class?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Wow.

JOHNSON: And we probably had five or six.

BRINSON: That’s a large number of children in a class.

JOHNSON: Uh-huh. This was a, this was just a two-room school so I had first, second and third grades, and the other teacher had fourth, fifth and sixth.

BRINSON: So you had all three grades together at one time, and you were expected to kind of teach different kinds of curriculum . . .?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. We taught everything. Uh-huh. And, uh, one of my students works at one of the local banks. She’s in the bookkeeping department, and they said she’s one of the best. And, uh, last year, I guess it was, I was visiting the nursing home; and one of the nurses, uh, was one of my students up there. So it’s gratifying to, to see them, you know, when I had them in the first grade.

BRINSON: All grown up now.

JOHNSON: Yeah. Yeah.

BRINSON: I want to go back and talk a little bit about discrimination. Were, were any of your family or friends—were there instances that you were aware of that they were discriminated against because of color?

JOHNSON: I think jobs would have been the primary focal areas. Uh, but I, I, I can’t think of any instances where they were just singled out, you know. It was just in, in job-related areas or in, you know, not--being denied access to facilities and things of this nature.

BRINSON: Who were your civil rights heroes?

JOHNSON: Thurgood Marshall.

BRINSON: [Cough] Mine, too. [laughter]

JOHNSON: And, uh, I, I, guess he probably at that time was and I suppose he probably was for many of the black people, uh, in this area. But in later years when Martin Luther King came on the scene and some of the others, uh, I guess we—I don’t think I related to him as much as I did Thurgood because of his involvement with the NAACP, and that’s where I was. But then, I guess it would be kind of hard to pick out some of them, but I, I worked in Mississippi during, the, uh, the fifties. I worked at a, uh, Bible camp there. Also, in Jackson, and of course, this was during the times when it was—these were heated days, [laughter] and I was traveling in that area. And I, I learned, of course, I learned to respect those who were in the forefront there. Uh, the Medgar Evers and, uh, the Chaneys. Those that were involved in it then, uh, but, uh, and so while I appreciated them and respected them and so on, but to just pick out one . . .

BRINSON: But your work there in the fifties—the late fifties?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Uh . . .

JOHNSON: In the middle, middle to late . . . Yeah, I started working there—I went there in ’54.

BRINSON: Were you there just a portion of the year?

JOHNSON: Yeah, I was just there during the summer. I worked at their camp in the summer.

BRINSON: So from ’54 to about . . .?

JOHNSON: …Sixty-one, sixty-two.

BRINSON: Okay. In Jackson you said?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: And outside of your work at the Bible camp, were you involved in any of the local activities there to challenge segregation?

JOHNSON: No, I was—see, I was just there for six, maybe five or six weeks. Uh, but I saw some—I saw firsthand, uh, some of the segregation policies, but I used to tell people, I said, “In some ways they had it better in Mississippi than we did here in Harlan.” For an example, in Woolworth’s, they had two lunch counters. And so I couldn’t tell any difference between, uh, the ones for the blacks and the ones for the whites, and I said, “Well, at least we can go inside and sit down.” You know, but we couldn’t here, but also, though, there, there were differences. For an example, of course, we couldn’t use the same restrooms; and this posed a problem because—besides, it, uh, they had, they would have a sign saying men and women or ladies and gentlemen and then colored. And this does something to you emotionally when you’re singled off colored. Now, if this was a place where they didn’t have a sign saying colored, then you could use the restroom. And then they would have the water fountains. They would have the nice water fountains for the whites, and then they’d have little fountains some place else for blacks, but then some places they didn’t have any. And I remember one place that I went, and it was extremely hot, and I said, “Do you have a, a water fountain?” And he said, “Yes.” He said, “Right over there.” And I looked and I didn’t see it, and I said, came back and I said, “Where is your water fountain?” And he said, “Right there.” And he pointed and I said, “Is that what you call a water fountain?” I said, “That looks like what my papa used to feed his--water the chickens.” [laughing]

BRINSON: A spigot or . . .?

JOHNSON: It was a little—I had never seen one that shape before, but I said, “That looks like where my papa used to feed his chickens,” is what I said. But, also, we stopped at one place in, uh—I guess we were near Tuscaloosa, and this is when they were throwing the eggs and the oranges there. And, uh, we stopped at a service station, and we got the gas, and we looked around—there was a nurse with me who lived in Meridian. And we looked around and we didn’t see but one water fountain; and, of course, we knew from experience that that wasn’t for us, but we just decided we’d chance it. And, uh, so we just got us a drink. And, and, just as we were finishing, [cleared throat] this attendant came around and in a very harsh voice, he said to us, “Don’t you think you’d better use the cup?” Because if you didn’t--if they didn’t have the two water fountains, then you had to put yours in a cup; and we didn’t. So he said, “Don’t you think you’d better use the cup?” And Flossie said, she said, “Oh, that’s all right.” Said, “We got all we need now.” So we just, we left. And, uh, another time we stopped at a service station--and I, and I never stopped at, in small towns or at a small service station--and, uh, we asked for the restroom cause we didn’t—we walked all around the building, and we didn’t see one that said colored. And so we asked if, uh, they had one, and, uh, he said, “Yeah.” He said, “Right down there.” So we went to the end of the building. We still didn’t see it. And so we came back, and we said, I said, “Is your restroom outside or inside?” And he took us to where they had a car on a grease rack. And they had a little, dirty, filthy, uh, just a commode and off from that grease rack. And I remember we had to go under that thing and go there; and it was so dirty that Flossie, uh, protested almost. And I said, “Oh, well. It’ll serve the purpose.” You know, so, but those were days that you had to suffer the indignities. And so this is why I have tremendous respect for all of those civil rights workers who went to the, the forefront, you know, for us. Uh-hmm. So I lived long enough to be in the middle of it and then long enough to see the change also.

I remember one time at, uh--Charles Fuller came there and--you know him? He was this, he was this nationally, well, really, world-renowned evangelist and had the, uh, radio program, the Old-fashioned Gospel Hour; and everybody knew Charles Fuller in those days. And he came to, uh, Mississippi, came to Jackson, and they were going to have the, uh, the crusade at, uh, the football--they were going to have it at one of the auditoriums, and, uh, Mr. Waddell wanted to take the campers and wanted them to have the experience of seeing this world-renowned man. And when we arrived at the building and when they found out that there were black people, then the people who rented the building wouldn’t, uh, wouldn’t let him, uh, use the building. So then we went to a football stadium but even then they segregated us and they put us at, uh, one, at the extreme left. So here was Fuller, those to the right of him and those in the center and those to the left and then there was the extreme. So we were at the extreme. Now he was famous for doing his invitations, and he’d ask for a show of hands for those that wanted to become Christians. And he was famous for saying, “God bless you to my right, and God bless you in the center, and God bless you to my left.” So he went through that “God bless you to my right, and God bless you in the center, and God bless you to my left” and then he said, “And God bless you people way over there. And I said, “Hey, ya’all, that’s us!” [laughter] Oh, I remember Mr. Waddell, he was, uh--angry wasn’t the word; he was just mad. And Ms. Waddell was kind of more moderate, and she was trying to calm him down. And she said, “He didn’t want to come.” Said, “He didn’t really want to come because he knew that that would happen, something like that would happen.” And that just upset him. They were a white couple. And, uh, but, you know, when you suffer the indignities, sometimes that, that’s more subtle and it does more damage than the actual physical . . .

BRINSON: Right. Well, that raises a good question. Uh, were there whites in Harlan County that were supportive, who worked actually to eliminate segregation in any way?

JOHNSON: No. Most of the effort that was done was done by blacks. And in later years there were some who sympathetically would come on board. But they didn’t just take the lead and say—for an example, we had, uh, a panel discussion—as I said, we had many panel discussions in those days and just group meetings and stuff and uh . . .

BRINSON: Under the sponsorship of the NAACP or . . .?

JOHNSON: Sometimes the NAACP and sometimes the PTA.

END OF TAPE TWO, SIDE TWO

BEGIN TAPE THREE, SIDE ONE

BRINSON: . . . so you were talking about the . . .

JOHNSON: Oh, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church was one of the panelists. And, uh, then there were, there were two whites on there, I guess, and one of them was from the Christian church, a student; we were getting it from different perspectives. And, uh, one of the ladies in the audience, who was Mike Hale’s aunt, uh, she asked him, uh, what he thought the churches could do to bring about integration peacefully. And, uh, he said, uh, “Basically,” he said, :Nothing.” He said, “You know,” he said, “We all have our faults, and we all have our little sins, and” he said, “segregation,” said, “this is just the white man’s little sin.” [laughter] By that time my face was hot. And I was in the audience--and they had asked me to be on the, uh, the panel and I didn’t, but I wished I had. But, and I think I was in the right place because I was one--in the audience, and I raised my hand and, uh, I remember I really came down on him. And I, you know, I told him that of all people, the churches should be taking the lead. And I told him that caused me to, uh, raise doubts about how many of them were saved, you know. And I quoted this verse in First John that says, “How can you love God whom you haven’t seen when you don’t love your brother that you see everyday?” You know. And I remember, as I was talking, he started pacing; and the more he paced, the more I talked, you know. But we, we didn’t have anybody, many people that we could go to and say, “Will you help me?” But I can remember, I do remember one man--he was the--he later became county attorney, Merv Howard. And I remember he, he kind of joined in with us. Now, he didn’t initiate it but once we got started--and he participated in some of the group meetings that we had and, uh, the, the panel discussions and so on. But he was one that you could have counted on. And, uh, one time I called at the Presbyterian Church and I said, uh, I asked them—in those days we were called Negroes—and I said, asked him if we could come, and he said, “Yeah.” He said, “If you come,” said, “you’ll have to sit in the balcony.” And, uh, so I said, “Thank you.” And, uh, so, of course, we didn’t go.

BRINSON: You wanted to go to a regular church service?

JOHNSON: Yeah.

BRINSON: Or were you just testing?

JOHNSON: Yeah, just testing.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: And he said that we would have to sit in the balcony so we didn’t go there; but my cousin and I did go to the Catholic Church. And so we just sat, uh, where they did; there was no problem. And so we just, we just observed. Of course, we didn’t know what was going on, but we, uh, we did go. But, the interesting thing is that years later, in ’70, I was hired as the mission coordinator of that same Presbyterian Church and became a member there, because you had to be a member to be their mission coordinator. So I became the first black member of that church where at one time we would have had, we were relegated to the, uh, balcony. So, uh, it’s been . . .

BRINSON: And were you received as a member? How were you received?

JOHNSON: Very well. Very well received by, uh, by all of them. And, uh, by male and female, old and young.

BRINSON: By that time people had had a chance to sort of adjust to the changes . . .

JOHNSON: Uh-huh and they, they had a different, uh, pastor. And, uh, and by this time, I was, uh, I was—everybody in the community knew me. And, uh, so I brought black kids in there. I helped them build up their Sunday school, and I brought black kids and poor whites and, uh—and I also learned, though, that there’s a lot of discrimination against poor whites. But, of course, now if they’ve got a choice between the poor whites and black, they’ll take the poor whites. But they are discriminated against also. And, uh . . .

BRINSON: The Presbyterian Church, I hope, paid you.

JOHNSON: Yes. They, uh-huh, they, uh, they had some special funds, and we were paid out of, out of that. But it, it was a good program and, and a good memory too.

BRINSON: I want to go back to you calling the different churches to see about attending. Was that part of an organized strategy? Were calls made to all of the churches?

JOHNSON: This was something that I did on my own. I was trying to find out how they, uh, how they were thinking and, uh, so on, but it was not a part of, of the NAACP or the PTA movement. It was just an individual thing.

BRINSON: You just wanted to know for your own . . .

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Were you thinking that you would do anything with that information once you knew it?

JOHNSON: Uh, it, it would serve as, as a referral for people looking for churches. And, uh, the pastor at that time at the Presbyterian Church was Albert Pearson, and he came under, uh, some criticism when he did that. You know, one of the local pastors said to him, said, “Al, it won’t work.” You know, and . . .

BRINSON: When he did what? When he . . .

JOHNSON: When I was hired . . .

BRINSON: Okay. To work there.

JOHNSON: That’s right. And, uh, one of his members—this was at the Harlan Baptist Church—and one of his members went over into the housing project, and, of course, they had a lot of black kids, and wanted to bring kids in there. And, uh, he didn’t let her do that, you know, at the Baptist Church. But Mr. Pearson, uh, you know, he had the courage to still do what he thought was right. And, uh, . . .

BRINSON: Was there ever a chapter of CORE, the Congress for Racial Equality, in this area?

JOHNSON: No. No.

BRINSON: Or any other civil rights groups?

JOHNSON: Uh, we had, uh—the NAACP was the, uh, the one. And later, in later years, after affirmative action came on the scene, we had a chapter and it was short-lived. I think—or at least I know I did—I got discouraged when I found out that--I said, “Well, this is not worth the paper it’s written on for places like Harlan.” When we learned that, uh, you have to hire a certain number of employees before you’re required to hire a black person. And we didn’t have, uh, employers here that, that hired in that volume. The school system and the hospital would have been the ones that was hiring the most people, and they were hiring black people.

BRINSON: And you’re talking about, I assume, the ’64 civil rights act?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: That really stipulated affirmative action.

JOHNSON: No, I’m talking about after, even after, yeah, after that. Uh, this was still true because we had, uh, we had a man that was seeking employment in one of the programs, and, uh, so, so they didn’t want to hire him. And, of course, if you don’t want to hire him, you don’t say, “It’s because you’re black.” But they’ll say, “It’s because you’re not qualified.” Uh, but I know that they hire--white people are hired all the time that’s not qualified for positions, but they train them. Uh, so this is when, uh, I got involved on my own. And I contacted the affirmative action and I contacted some more folks, and this is when I learned that there was nothing that we could do. This was in the late seventies--that there was nothing we could do because they were not employing a certain number of people. And so I said, “Well, this--as far as Harlan is concerned--that affirmative action is not worth the paper it’s written on as far as helping us.” So, we never did really do much with it.

BRINSON: You mentioned Lyman Johnson earlier and I wonder, uh--Georgia Davis Powers got elected to the Senate and worked on, uh, public housing but employment kinds of issues. And then even Governor Bert Combs, who was from over this way, uh, in, was responsible, I think, for starting the state human relations commission. There were rallies in Frankfort. Were you aware of, all the people of Harlan aware of this activity outside of the area? Was there any involvement in any of it in any way or . . .?

JOHNSON: Uh, Phillip Fluker would have attended more than anybody else. I remember, uh, they were having one in Frankfort once, and I tried to get somebody to go with me. And everybody just turned me down flat, and they said, “No, we’re a little reluctant to get involved.” And, uh, so we, we kind of sit back and watch the others do it, and then we reap the benefits of what somebody else does. But Phillip would have been more involved in participating in things outside the county.

BRINSON: Papers like the Louisville Defender, uh . . . did they come into the area at all? Were people in the black community reading about what was going on there?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm. Yeah. We got the Chicago Defender also. We got two of them. But, uh, we, and through our involvement in, uh, with the NAACP, too, we knew what was going on. And we were aware of it, but we were a little more laid back and were willing to let somebody else . . .

BRINSON: Were you ever an officer in the NAACP?

JOHNSON: I was, uh, secretary.

BRINSON: Okay. And what, what were your responsibilities?

JOHNSON: Just keeping up with the dues collected and the, and taking minutes and so on. And those who reported to the treasurer--there was, uh, coordination between the secretary and the treasurer of . . .

BRINSON: Are those minutes and other organizational papers, uh--does somebody have them today?

JOHNSON: I don’t know where they are. I don’t know. They may have been destroyed in the flood. Because we, uh, we were meeting at, uh, First Baptist Church, and the church was flooded. And, uh, so I don’t know . . .

BRINSON: That’s right. You had a big flood through here in, uh . . .

JOHNSON: We had several.

BRINSON: . . . Seventy-seven or something like that?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh. And the sixties, too. And so they may have, uh, gotten destroyed then.

BRINSON: Okay. What about voting? Blacks in Kentucky have always had the vote, as I understand it. Were there ever things like poll taxes or white primaries or . . .?

JOHNSON: No, we could, uh, we could vote, uh—in my lifetime, I’ve heard of poll taxes, but I never knew anything about it. I just know it existed but, uh--in this area, I think our voting is more of a monetary thing. There’s a lot of vote buying and selling, and, uh, we, we have been influenced by that. You know, whichever one comes along and gives us the $2.00. It used to be $2.00 and pint of liquor. [laughing] Of course, now they have to do it, uh, undercover, you know, since that’s illegal to do; but it still goes on, uh, you know. A lot of it goes on. But, uh, and there’s, uh, there’s more voting now but still not as much, uh, as there should be. There’s not as much involvement as there should be, but it’s a whole lot better than it used to be.

BRINSON: How does, uh, how does the black community, in particular, tend to vote in terms of party?

JOHNSON: We used to vote republican because of Abraham Lincoln, but now, basically, we’re democratic because of the opportunities and etcetera.

BRINSON: Do you remember any time or any issue in which black voters kind of got together and decided they were going to vote a certain way, maybe on a bond resolution or something, a county ordinance or . . .?

JOHNSON: No.

BRINSON: There’s never been any effort that you’re aware of to organize voters, black voters for an issue?

JOHNSON: No, uh-uh.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: But we, uh, we have, uh, some black people now on the city council, but we don’t have any on any of the school boards or, uh--but we do have, we do have some on the city council. But now we’ve never had one on the Harlan city council, but they’ve been out in the county.

BRINSON: Why do you think—do blacks ever run for school board?

JOHNSON: I don’t, uh, I don’t ever remember one running . . .

BRINSON: Okay. Do you have any sense of why that wouldn’t be . . .?

JOHNSON: . . . for school board.

BRINSON: It’s a lot of work.

JOHNSON: I think probably just a lack of interest and motivation.

BRINSON: Okay. Well, I’m about at the end of thinking right now what it is I want to ask you. But I’m sure—I do have one final question—but I’m sure when I go back and transcribe the tapes, I might well have some other things if you don’t mind my calling you and . . .

JOHNSON: No, you can call me any time.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: Did I give you, uh, the number out at Immanuel Church?

BRINSON: No.

JOHNSON: Well, let me give you that because if I’m . . .

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: That’s 573-6839.

BRINSON: Okay. And tell me what your role is there now? You had the van in your driveway, which is how I really found you. [laughter]

JOHNSON: I asked Arnold one time, I said, “What is my position here?” He laughed and he said, “Assistant Pastor.” But I, uh, I guess I do whatever needs to be done. But I have three—I have two Bible clubs and I have one on--one meets on Monday evenings here in, in the city, and then the other one is up in the Cumberland, Benham and Lynch area. We meet there on Tuesday nights. And then I have a teens class on Thursday nights. And, uh, so a lot of my time is spent in, uh, involved in that and, uh, then whatever, just whatever goes on at the church. I, uh, I’m there to, to, uh, to help Arnold, and I teach a Sunday school class out there. I have a ladies class there, and we have Vacation Bible School and, uh, out there and . . .

BRINSON: How big is this church? How many people come . . .?

JOHNSON: The regular attendance usually is about two hundred twenty, two hundred thirty. Uh, that’s kind of average. Sometimes it may drop lower than that.

BRINSON: And is this an integrated church?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. And how has that been for you? You’ve really gone from, uh, a totally black church environment originally to being, uh, a minority in a white world when you talk about Washington and your experience and how--to a very integrated church environment now. How is that for you?

JOHNSON: Uh, I think—each one is, each time it’s a different experience, and, uh, you have to get to know the people. They have to get to know you. Uh, they have to get to know you, and, uh, it’s not been a problem with Arnold; and I don’t think—that’s the pastor—and I don’t think he would ever let it be a problem, you know, if he knew it. Sometimes—we talk a lot sometimes, and sometimes he’ll say, “Well,”--and he doesn’t say it anymore--he’ll say, “Well, I know how black people feel.” And I say, “No, you,” I say, “Oh, no Arnold. You don’t know how we feel. There’s no white person knows how we feel.” I said, “You have to--you might sympathize with us, but you have to be there and experience it to know how it feels.” You know. But he, he works just as diligent with, uh . . . and he actively, you know, he doesn’t just have an open-door policy, but he actively recruits blacks. He, he, uh, goes after them. He’ll visit them. He does lots of home visits, and he visits them just as diligently as he does—and, and he will visit the poor just as diligently as he does—in fact, he’ll do it more than he does with the middle class or the upper class. And so it’s . . .

BRINSON: Where do you see the black community today in this country?

JOHNSON: I think we, uh, I guess we are—in some areas we may be at a standstill, but in some areas I think we are regressing. And, uh, I think, uh, racism is still alive. And in, in some ways, it’s subtle; and in some areas, it’s more overt. And I think I like the overt—and that’s what I used to tell them about Mississippi. I said, “I knew where my place was there. Here in Harlan you have to kind of feel around to find out where your place is, but I knew where it was there.” And, but there’s been a lot of progress and a lot of change in Harlan, you know. But we just certainly have not made--we have not progressed as much as we should, and I’d like to see a whole lot more of it.

BRINSON: Is the progress in Harlan reflective, uh, of what’s happened at the national level or is it a different . . .

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: . . place?

JOHNSON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: It is?

JOHNSON: It’s reflective of the national scene, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay. Do you think we need another civil rights movement?

JOHNSON: [laughter] I, I’d hate for us to have to go through what we did to, uh--but I think if we can ever get the hearts of man changed, I think that’s where the, uh, the change is going to come. And, we made gains from these movements, but, uh, I think the lasting and enduring thing is if we can get the hearts of, uh, man changed and just, uh, just accept people as they are. You know, sometimes, uh, people will say—and I think they mean well when, when Caucasians will say, “I don’t see color.” And, I say, “Yeah, you do see color.” And I think what they’re, I think, you know--I understand what they’re saying, but we do need to see color and we do need to see differences and diversities. But just be able to work within that framework and see them as human beings, you know, and I, I—just two weeks ago, I was talking to a fellow was tuning my piano. And we were talking about school integration, and I said, “Black people lost. We lost just about everything.” I said, “The only thing that I see that we gained here in Harlan was that they recognized that we were human beings, and we had access to, uh, labs, science labs, and we got new school books.” ‘Cause at Rosenwald, we didn’t have a science lab. I was never in a biology lab until I went to LMU. And I was never in a chemistry lab. And, uh . . .

BRINSON: What about your school books?

JOHNSON: Our school books? We got the used books from the white schools. They got the new ones, and we got the used ones; and, uh, so we did get new school books. But we lost our teachers. We lost that personal touch, and our kids are outnumbered and, and so they’ve, they’ve been kind of lost. And, uh, we have children come into our Bible club that we know they can learn, and we know they can do better than what they’re doing in school. And we’ve organized a, a group here. It’s called Black Parents and Friends and we, uh--and the idea did not originate with me; it originated with Barbara Thomas that is a nurse. But we went into the neighborhoods and we were going to offer--it was to be a combination of tutoring and an enrichment program. And, uh, because our black kids, they don’t get to exercise their talents unless they just sing with the Meusettes or the boy’s choir. They’re lost. We lost our cheerleaders. We know that we’ve got good cheerleaders [chuckle] but you may have—for years we didn’t have any and then—it used to be a problem, and I said, ‘It’s a shame. Our black boys get out there and help win the games, and then there’s nobody to go running out there to hug them.’ You know. But now that’s changed, you know, but . . .

BRINSON: Are there black girls who try out for cheerleaders?

JOHNSON: Yeah, they try out but they didn’t get selected. So now, every now and then you may see one, you know—that’s why I’ve said that it’s changed some. But, uh, so we wanted our children to be in an environment where they could have some positive experiences and, which they were not receiving in this setting. So we, uh, so this is why we’re going to have the tutoring and also, uh, then, the enrichment program. So each of us took a neighborhood and canvassed it, and we explained to the parents what we were doing, and they were all in favor of it. But when we informed them that they would have to be involved if their children were—because, you know, our thinking was you can bring them to this center and work with them, but if the parents are not reinforcing and working with you--and they need to know how to help their child study and see to it that they do their homework, et cetera. And when they learned that they would need to be involved, I mean, they just turned it down flat. And most of us that were involved with it--some of us that were involved in it, I guess--didn’t have chick nor child. So, we, so that aspect of it never got off the ground. We still went ahead and organized the group to kind of serve as liaison between the black kids and the school, and we, we have accomplished a, a few things. Like for one thing, we, uh, been instrumental in getting the city school to recognize Martin Luther King’s birthday, because they would have an in-service day. So we asked them to put it on their calendar as a holiday, and not as an in-service day, and they, they did. But, but that was not the main purpose. We wanted to help the children directly, but we could not get the parents. Now we did—if there was a problem, if one of the parents perceived a problem with their child, oh, they’d come out in mass then. But I said to them, “This is reaction. We need positive action and not reacting to some problem.” And, uh . . .

BRINSON: Let me ask you, the parents themselves, you said, didn’t want to have to come and be directly involved other than bringing their children. And that, you know--to me, you and everyone I’ve talked to who grew up and attended a black school just has such great things to say about their own education in those schools and how much attention and the teachers gave them and, you know, without resources . . .

END OF TAPE THREE, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE THREE, SIDE TWO

BRINSON: . . . but they can’t make the connection . . .

JOHNSON: This, this has been a difficult thing for us to try to understand ourselves. Uh, I, some of the younger people that were involved in Black Parents and Barbara Thomas, uh, we used to brainstorm of what can we do to get them involved in the educational process. And, uh, they were frustrated with our organization, and there’s times I said, “It’s not,” I said, “It’s not just this group; it goes on back to before integration with PTA. The ones that were most involved in that were the ones that, uh, didn’t always have children.” You know. So, but to get parents involved was a difficult thing. But, uh, with, uh, with our Bible club, the children are on winning teams and we’ve kind of—we, we lost our identity to a certain extent. But since we’ve involved, or organized, the Black Parents and Friends, now the schools recognize a day during Black History Month, and they have, uh, a program. And our children, our children didn’t know We Shall Overcome. They didn’t know Lift Every Voice and Sing, see, because they were into the white man’s world; but now [laughing] they’re learning that they’re black. And we’ve taught them these songs and . . .

BRINSON: Do you teach them through the Bible club or through the schools?

JOHNSON: No, we taught them We Shall Overcome and Lift Every Voice and Sing at Bible—cause we have a singing, uh, time and, uh, that’s where we, uh, we taught them. And, on Thursday nights, uh, with the teens class, I think the socializing is a big thing for them because they get to give—on that bus, they’re sitting on each other and, uh, crowded and crowded. But they like that being together, and they get to be black. And they just get to be themselves, and they, they play ball. Uh, we, I let them--well, I give them a snack and then they can play. They can choose. Most of the time, the boys choose basketball.

BRINSON: What age?

JOHNSON: Hmm?

BRINSON: What age?

JOHNSON: These are from grade seven through twelve on Thursday nights, and we’ve got a place where they can play softball or volleyball. Uh, there’s a Ping Pong table, and I have some table games that they can play. Uh, but it’s, it’s just a relaxed time, and they can choose whichever they want to do. Some—now the boys, most of the time they always play basketball; but sometimes now in the warm weather they may, they probably play softball and volleyball. But, but it’s a choice. And sometimes the girls will get out there and play ball with them; sometimes they’ll go sit in a swing; sometimes they’ll see-saw; sometimes they just sit and watch the boys or sometimes they’re the sportscasters. It’s just whatever they want to do, and then, then we have our Bible lesson. And when it’s time to go home, I say, “Don’t run out of this building. Walk.” [laughing] But you should see—they’re walking fast because they’re all trying to get to the bus to get a good seat because they know how crowded it’s going to be. But they, they like that fellowship and, uh, sometimes, sometimes they, now sometimes they’ll talk about serious things, sometimes it’s just teen talk, and then sometimes what they’re saying doesn’t make a bit of sense. But they love it. For an example, one night they was going up there—I don’t even know how this one started. One would say something like, “I’ve got the shoes and you’ve got the socks.” Uh, “I’ve got the beans, you’ve got the potatoes.” And one night, one of them said, “I’ve got the pork and you’ve got the chops.” Just. . . . [laughter-Brinson] Now, they did this for several miles and they just laughing. So it was interesting to me how they could come up with these, uh, different things, you know. And, uh, so I thought, ‘You’ve got to think quick.’ And one, and, and, they kept it going from one to the other; there was just that progression, you know, and, uh, so they—but the fellowship and that socializing of just getting to be black and being with each other. And, to me, uh, I don’t think that you want a group to lose their identity, and, and, to me, that, that was one of the things that happened with us when the schools integrated, see, because we were losing our identity. And, uh, and, of course, that will happen when you’re a minority, and, uh, that’s to be expected. So this is what I mean when I say that we lost.

BRINSON: In, in the--when Stokely Carmichael started to articulate black power and whatnot—and he certainly wasn’t the only one—but how, how did people in Harlan County react to that? How did . . .?

JOHNSON: As far as the general population, it never took. Basically, we’re nonviolent and we, uh—you know, you’ve got a few radicals. You may have a fellow here or there but that was all. It never, it never caught on here.

BRINSON: So people were much more predisposed to Martin Luther King?

JOHNSON: To, to, to the nonviolence. Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Okay.

JOHNSON: This is just a personal thing, uh, with me.

BRINSON: About Stokely Carmichael?

JOHNSON: No, no, no. This is just about blackness and signs and symbols and stuff. I’ve never really got, uh, caught up into this—it bothers me that, uh, the, uh, Negro race, that we feel like we have to change our titles every few years, you know. And, used to, if you called us black, uh, you’d just be ready to get knocked down, you know. And, uh, but that concerns me. And I don’t get caught up in it, and, see, I’m not caught up into this Afro-American thing now. [laughing] And when they were wearing the Afros, I never got into that. And I remember one thing this fellow that I’m his play mom and he came back from the military and the Afros hadn’t made it to Harlan then. And he came into a basketball tournament, had his hair frod, and I said to him, I said, “Get somewhere and get that wooly stuff, that abnormal growth off of your head.” And he said, “But you don’t understand.” Said, “This is the native look.” I said, “You ain’t no native of Africa. You a native of Harlan, and you get that off of your head.” And I never got into the bushy head. And now some of them laugh at me, and I don’t know if, [laughing] which way they’re laughing, with or at or in disgust. But I’m not into this Afro-American thing, and I said to them, I said, “I don’t have my roots in Africa. I’m not an African American.” I said, “I’m a native American and my roots are in Europe.” [laughing]

BRINSON: Well, and you really are. You are a native American from the early Native Americans who were here.

JOHNSON: Yeah. Yeah and I said, “I’m Anglo-Saxon.” And I said, “I don’t have my roots—so,” I said, “I’m not an African American.” And I don’t think all of these titles and these labels that they tag onto us are fitting so this is why I’m saying that we’re, we’re kind of . . . but I guess I’m probably the only black person you’ll find in Harlan that feels that way. And, you know, but about these name changes and stuff--but I just think, you know, why can’t we just be what we are? Why do we have to keep changing and putting labels on us and . . .

BRINSON: I want to ask you, Ms. Johnson, do you ever regret staying in Harlan and not going somewhere else?

JOHNSON: No. I wouldn’t change it for anything. And I’ve had opportunities. I had a job opportunity before I came back here to work with the mission. And then I, uh, I left social services in ’96 because I just, I said, “While I have the health and strength I want to be in Christian work full time and not just do it at night and on the weekends.” So, when I left social services, I think--some of my family, my sisters were thinking and hoping that I would move on to Ohio since I don’t have any relatives here. And they were disappointed [laughing] when they learned that, uh, I was going to stay here. And, no, I just—I like my heritage; I like Harlan; I like the people. And, and I like working with those that don’t have as many opportunities, and, uh, so I, I like to work with the underdog. So I have no regrets.

BRINSON: I didn’t ask you questions to take you through all of your careers. Uh, when did you go to work for social services?

JOHNSON: In ’73, when I graduated from LMU.

BRINSON: Okay. And you worked there till ’96?

JOHNSON: Twenty-two years.

BRINSON: And what were you doing with them?

JOHNSON: [Sigh] I did some of everything. When I first went with them, I was juvenile court worker, then I was in adult services, and then, when I left, I was in child protection.

BRINSON: That’s a hard job.

JOHNSON: Yeah. And I think I enjoyed the adult services most because I was working with, uh, the handicapped, the elderly, the sick. And I felt that they were in that position through no fault of their own. In juvenile court, I think I liked that least of all because I was frustrated. I think the juvenile code needs to be changed and, uh--these kids that get out here and commit adult crimes, I don’t have sympathy for them. And I think if you—the punishment should be commensurate with the crime. If you get out there and kill somebody, you ought to have to go to prison. That’s the way I feel. But you can’t do that as a juvenile worker because you are the advocate for the juvenile so I found myself in a position where I was forced to be the advocate when there were times that I would like to have hit them with a two by four. [laughter]

END OF TAPE THREE, SIDE TWO

END OF INTERVIEW