BETSY BRINSON: It is May 6, 1999, and this is an interview with Mrs. Gustava
Hayden at her home in Owensboro, Kentucky. This is an unrehearsed interview. The interviewer is Betsy Brinson.BETSY BRINSON: Thank you, Mrs. Hayden, for agreeing to talk with me today. I
wonder if we could begin . . . could you tell me when and where you were born please?GUSTAVE HAYDEN: I was born here in Owensboro, Kentucky on Jackson Street, that’s
the east part of town. That was October the 20th, 1912.BRINSON: 1912 . . . so that makes you eighty-seven.
HAYDEN: Eighty-six.
BRINSON: Eighty-six.
HAYDEN: I’ll be eighty-seven this . . .
BRINSON: In October.
HAYDEN: Yeah.
BRINSON: Okay. Uh, and you’ve lived in Owensboro all your life?
HAYDEN: Yes, I have.
BRINSON: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about your, uh, your growing up
here, your education, your family?HAYDEN: Well, we lived on Jackson Street between Seventh and Eighth—that’s where
a school was. At that time it was Eastern School and, uh, it had pot-belly stove, coal stove and the restroom was out in the yard. And, uh, we lived across the street from the school. There was a teacher there, Miss Ollie Blandford. She fell in love with me and asked mother to let me come and sit in school, in her room with her. I started to learn so they enrolled me—at that time you didn’t have all these technicalities that you have now to go to school—and I started to learn, and I was four years old at the time. And I enjoyed the recreational part especially. And, uh, the neighborhood that we lived in, we all went from house to house and visited each other and the children all played with each other. We just enjoyed life. We didn’t do the things that kids are doing now. We made our fun.BRINSON: Did you have brothers and sisters?
HAYDEN: I have a brother and a sister, but I was the only one at the time. They
were born later—we were ages apart.BRINSON: So you were the oldest child?
HAYDEN: I was the oldest, yes.
BRINSON: Okay. And how did your, uh, your family get to be here in Owensboro?
HAYDEN: Well, uh, my grandmother, my mother’s mother, came from Hawesville,
Kentucky . . .BRINSON: Can you spell . . .
HAYDEN: . . . and I don’t know for sure if that’s where she was born or what.
BRINSON: Hawesville?
HAYDEN: Hawesville, Kentucky.
BRINSON: How do you spell that?
HAYDEN: That’s east . . . H-A-W-E-S-V-I-L-L-E.
BRINSON: Okay. Thank you.
HAYDEN: That’s east of Owensboro. Uh, small town, right on the banks of the Ohio
River. And so mother was born here in Owensboro. We been here all our lives.BRINSON: How did your family make their living?
HAYDEN: It wasn’t easy. It was hard. Mother was a laundry-woman; she took in
laundry at home. She didn’t work out away from home. She did laundry in her own home. I got big enough to help, I helped . . . I had to iron some napkins and small items. I had to do that before I could--after I come from school. She’d have a bundle here for me, “That’s yours to iron.” I’d have to iron those things before I could go out and play. And, uh, when we got ready for our meals, I had to make the biscuits every night ‘cause I made good biscuits. Oh, we just lived as best we could. Poor.BRINSON: Okay. And what about your father?
HAYDEN: My father did not live with us.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: He lived in Indianapolis and I can’t tell you much about him because he
was away from me. All I knew was to write him, tell him when I needed some money, or wanted some money. And, uh, his, his people didn’t want him to marry mother, but they didn’t marry so that’s all I know about that.BRINSON: Tell me a little bit about Western High School when you were there, and
what year did you graduate?HAYDEN: Yes, I graduated from Western High School in 1930. There were
twenty-seven, I think—if I can remember correctly—in my graduating class. And, uh, when I went from Eastern School--it wasn’t Eastern School when I graduated--by that time . . . my last year at Eastern, they built a new school and it was called Paul Dunbar. So when I went from Dunbar to Western School, I went there in the sixth grade, no seventh grade. We had sixth grade at Paul Dunbar. I went there in seventh grade and, uh, I’m trying to think who my first teacher was—Miss McMinkins, Rider McMinkins, I believe. Rider McMinkins was my seventh grade teacher and, uh, when I graduated, Professor Ward was the principal. While I was at Western we had, let’s see, Professor Carwell was principal one time, Professor Ward was principal one time, and then eventually Professor Barker. I can’t remember who the principal was . . .BRINSON: Of course, while you were growing up and until fairly recently, this
was a very segregated society in terms of race.HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: And I, uh, I recall that you had here in Owensboro a very segregated
society in terms of restaurants and . . .HAYDEN: Yes, we did.
BRINSON: . . . parks. What, what can you recall for me about all of that?
HAYDEN: From the segregated?
BRINSON: Uh-hmm.
HAYDEN: Well, we could go in any of the stores, the grocery stores. There were
restaurants that we couldn’t go in. We didn’t learn to go in restaurants and eat until after—after, what was the year? ’62, ’65, somewhere along in there. And the hotels—when the ministers would come to town to carry on revival, they stayed in the homes with some of the church members. They didn’t go to a hotel to stay. And, uh . . . I don’t know.BRINSON: How about the movies?
HAYDEN: Oh, yeah. We went to movie theaters and we had to go upstairs in the
balcony. And there was a movie over at Calhoun one time, uh, Ethel Waters was in it . . . I’ve forgotten the name of it. I was going to remember it. And we went over there to that little theater and we sat on some chairs upstairs. They were high—I called them high chairs, cramped quarters. But we enjoyed the movie, so . . . I mean it was difficult.BRINSON: It was different. At what, what point do you think you became aware of
this kind of, uh, discrimination?HAYDEN: Well, all along we just knew we couldn’t go here, we couldn’t go there,
we couldn’t do this. But we got accustomed to it. We didn’t like it but what could we do about it? I mean, we didn’t know . . .BRINSON: Did you ever travel outside of Kentucky while you were growing up, that
you might have seen a place or heard about, uh, a society that was less, uh, closed to people of color?HAYDEN: No, ( ). We didn’t, we didn’t travel much. Went to Hawesville to visit
aunties up there and back, and it was the same there it was in Owensboro. I don’t remember, I don’t remember doing a lot of traveling in younger days. We weren’t—couldn’t afford it.BRINSON: Were there people in your life, maybe teachers or other adults, who
kind of encouraged your thinking a little bit about a separate society in some way?HAYDEN: No, I think after I grew up--especially after high school, maybe
starting my latter years in high school—and I could read about such things, you know, my thinking became my own thoughts, not what someone told me or what someone said. And I don’t remember anybody encouraging me, or discouraging me.BRINSON: Okay. Tell me about, uh, your reading, the materials that you, you read
that you might have gained some insight.HAYDEN: I was a person that loved to read and I read everything and I still like
to read, if I could. I read a lot of things, a lot of books, newspapers and, uh, I mean, that was my information.BRINSON: What, what newspapers came in to this area that you would have been reading?
HAYDEN: Oh, the Evansville paper and, uh, I guess the Courier Journal was coming
here at that time. I don’t remember back then now—the Owensboro Messenger, it was Owensboro, it was Owensboro—two papers at first. It was Owensboro Inquirer and then the Messenger. Owensboro had two papers at one time then they merged.BRINSON: Was there a black newspaper anywhere in the area?
HAYDEN: No. There was a Pittsburgh Courier that came in here. One of the fellows
that worked up at ( ) would sell those papers.BRINSON: Was that a black newspaper?
HAYDEN: Yes, that was a black newspaper. Pittsburgh Courier.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: Let’s see. I think we had another one. I can’t remember what—that was a
church paper. Pittsburgh Courier is the only one I remember.BRINSON: Okay. Uh, do you recall a, a particular incident or, in which you felt
that you were personally being discriminated against because of color?HAYDEN: There was one, one thing I remember. We were out driving, kids in the
car—this was after I, I wasn’t married, we were just, bunch of us—and we stopped at a soda fountain place up on east Eighteenth Street where they sold root beer; and the kids wanted some. We stopped there and, uh, was going to get some at the window. And, uh, the lady that was there, she said, “I’m sorry. We can’t serve you all.” We drove on away.BRINSON: How did that make you feel?
HAYDEN: Oh, it was awful. It was awful.
BRINSON: Made you angry?
HAYDEN: Uh-hmm.
BRINSON: Did you think about how you might have done something . . .?
HAYDEN: No, I wasn’t, I wasn’t, it wasn’t that kind of anger. It was just--my
money’s just as good as anybody else’s. Why not take it?BRINSON: Right. So you graduated high school in 1930 . . .
HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: . . . and then what happened for you?
HAYDEN: When I graduated from high school, I went to work for two black
physicians. They had offices up there on Ninth and Breckinridge in a building called, the building was called Porters Building. And it had several occupants. There was a restaurant downstairs. There was a beer garden downstairs. There was a shoe shop downstairs. Upstairs was a ballroom and offices for the doctors, two rooms.BRINSON: Who were these doctors?
HAYDEN: Dr. Simpson and Dr. R. C. Neblett. Dr. C. E. Simpson and Dr. R.C.
Neblett. And I worked for them in that office for eight years, until they parted partnership.BRINSON: What, what, what were your responsibilities?
HAYDEN: I was the secretary or, or office help or whatever you wanted to call it
then. Uh, I assisted in minor surgeries that they might have done up there. They did a—the biggest thing that they did up there one time was to take a cyst off a fellow’s forehead up here, great big knot. And, uh, I just assisted, answered the phone, took calls, would find the doctor if it was necessary.BRINSON: So you worked there for eight years.
HAYDEN: I worked there for eight years.
BRINSON: And then what?
HAYDEN: And then after that I went out in service, worked cleaning homes and, uh
. . .BRINSON: Can you talk about that a little bit?
HAYDEN: I worked for some nice people. They were--most of them were rich people
and, uh, the pay was small. Paid twenty-five cents a hour some places and you didn’t get to work too long. You cleaned.BRINSON: Did you stay overnight or did you come, came home. . .?
HAYDEN: No, no I would just go in and out each day. I’d go a different place
every day and after that—I forgot how long I did that—but a black insurance company needed an agent and they came to me. So I was an agent for a black insurance company for eight years.BRINSON: And the name of that company?
HAYDEN: The name of that company was The Domestic, The Domestic Insurance
Company. That was its name.BRINSON: Was that part of a national company or . . .?
HAYDEN: Their home office was in Louisville.
BRINSON: In Louisville.
HAYDEN: Yes, and, uh, I worked for them eight years.
BRINSON: That would have been in the forties or so?
HAYDEN: Oh, I guess it was. I’m not, I’m not a statistician, never was. I never
could keep up with dates, when something happened.BRINSON: Okay. I want to ask you specifically about an incident here in 1938 in
which a black man, uh, by the name of, uh, Mr. Bathia, was taken out of the jail, uh--and the sheriff, I think, lost his life in trying to keep them from taking him out--and then he was hung.HAYDEN: Yeah.
BRINSON: Do you recall that?
HAYDEN: Yes, I remember that.
BRINSON: What can you recall? I don’t have any more information than what I just
told you.HAYDEN: Well, now, what I—they accused him of having, went in a home I think and
raped somebody. I don’t—I was of the age that they didn’t do too much talking to kids about those things. But I can remember on surface a little bit of it, and people going down to see him when he was going to be hung. Somebody came here from Louisville to push the button, all that, you know. And I just thought that was awful. I read about it in the paper.BRINSON: Were there other incidents of, uh, racial violence in the community
that you . . .?HAYDEN: That’s the only thing I know of. I don’t remember anything else.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: I don’t, really.
BRINSON: Did you ever hear whether the Ku Klux Klan or the White Citizens
Council . . .HAYDEN: I heard of the Ku Klux Klan.
BRINSON: . . . were active here?
HAYDEN: That, that I don’t know. That escapes me.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: I don’t know about the Ku Klux--I just know of the Ku Klux Klan, but I
don’t know if they did anything here of a prominent--I just don’t know. I don’t remember.BRINSON: Okay. After Mr. Bathia was lynched, uh, was there any, uh . . . what
was the reaction in the black community to that?HAYDEN: I don’t really know.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: I was of a family--we didn’t get out too much amongst people where they
were talking such things, you know. I was, I was a homebody. I don’t really know what was said or how they felt. We didn’t circulate in those circles.BRINSON: Okay. Did you have a church while you were growing up?
HAYDEN: Oh, yes. I still belong there. Central Street Baptist. It’s on Central
Street between Seventh and Eighth.BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: That’s where I went to Sunday school and I’m, I’m still a member there.
Now I have an auntie that belonged to what we call a wholeness church, and that church was on Hall Street. I went there one or two times, I don’t remember how much, you know. And another auntie and my grandmother belonged to a Methodist church. It was Asbury Methodist Church and that was out on Fifteenth and Mosely Streets. It’s still standing, and I used to go out there with them, you know, and I loved going out there. Just getting away from Jackson Street and walking out there was something for me, you know.BRINSON: How far a walk is that?
HAYDEN: Yeah, we walked. We didn’t have a car or anything.
BRINSON: And how far of a walk was that?
HAYDEN: Oh, that was, that was a pretty good distance. But we didn’t mind it.
BRINSON: Would you say a couple of miles maybe or . . .?
HAYDEN: I don’t know.
BRINSON: Just a good distance.
HAYDEN: Yes, it was.
BRINSON: Okay. Uh, during World War II in many communities—I’m going to tell you
this and you tell me if this sounds like it might have been true in Owensboro, too—but in many communities, particularly when black men went off to the war and came back, they, they learned while they were away that, uh, not all towns were segregated and societies were not segregated the way we were in the United States and, as a result, the NAACP became more active. A lot of people joined after World War II and there began to be more efforts to challenge segregation. Uh, how do you think that might have played out here in Owensboro?HAYDEN: Well, there was a NAACP group here. I joined as a member and that’s what
I was, just a member. I didn’t take an active part in it. I went to all the meetings and, uh, because I wanted to know what was going on, but that’s as far as I went where the NAACP was concerned, you know, until later when I could read about it in other places and I’d wonder why didn’t we do this or why didn’t we do that? Why don’t we do, you know . . . but I wasn’t a person that could get something like that started or anything. I’m a background person.BRINSON: Okay. Do you remember, uh, just approximately when you were going to
these meetings? How old you might have been then or what, what period . . . was it the forties, the fifties, the sixties?HAYDEN: Seems to me that I was still in school.
BRINSON: Still in school?
HAYDEN: Must have been high school.
BRINSON: Well, there was a youth chapter of the NAACP.
HAYDEN: Uh-hmm.
BRINSON: Think you might have been part of that?
HAYDEN: Maybe I was. It escapes me.
BRINSON: Okay. Do you remember, uh, anything about the people who belonged to
the NAACP with you then?HAYDEN: Yeah, the one, one fellow that was the president was a friend of mine,
but . . .BRINSON: Who was that?
HAYDEN: His name was Elijah Lunsford.
BRINSON: Lunsford. Okay.
HAYDEN: His wife and I were real good friends. He was a—oh, what do you call
those people? Well, my brain’s not working.BRINSON: Was this his profession?
HAYDEN: No. No, he was just an ordinary person. He regrooves tires. That was his
job. He went all over parts of Kentucky doing that, regrooving tires. That was something that no one else around here did. So it was interesting.BRINSON: But he must have been looked up to, to have been selected to be president.
HAYDEN: Well, yes.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: You know, some people has that bulldog tenacity?
BRINSON: Uh-huh.
HAYDEN: He was one.
BRINSON: Okay. [small laugh]
HAYDEN: That’s how I think he became president.
BRINSON: Okay. Uh, tell me about your children.
HAYDEN: I married . . . I think . . . I married Volney Johnson . . . I finished
school in ’30 and uh . . .BRINSON: Now I understand . . .
HAYDEN: Let me see what year we married.
BRINSON: Let me tell you where I’m going with this. I understand that you had a
child, or maybe more, who was involved with the integration of the school system.HAYDEN: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
BRINSON: How many children do you have?
HAYDEN: I have three boys. The oldest one, Reginald Johnson, uh, was one from
Western School that was chosen, or selected, or asked, to go out to Owensboro Senior High School because of his being a decent, upright person, clean-cut, not a trouble-maker. And there were others besides him that were chosen to go out there during this integration period. And, uh, he wore out a lot of shoe leather ‘cause he walked from Western School out to Owensboro Senior High, and from Senior High back to Western School for class.BRINSON: There was no bus system?
HAYDEN: No, he went for a history class. One class. My husband at that time
worked in the Charlie Fields family, packing-house man. His wife’s sister was history teacher and that was the class that R.V. was in—his name was Reginald Volney; we called him R.V.—that was the class that he was in.BRINSON: Let me stop you. Reginald—tell me his . . .
HAYDEN: Reginald Volney Johnson.
BRINSON: How do you spell that?
HAYDEN: V-o-l-n-e-y.
BRINSON: . . . n-e-y? Okay, thank you.
HAYDEN: And, uh . . .
BRINSON: So he was in this history class?
HAYDEN: He was in her history class. So at home and in talking she told the
family that Volney was stubborn.BRINSON: Stubborn?
HAYDEN: Uh-huh. He wasn’t stubborn; he was scared stiff. You throw a youngster
into an environment like that, that he hadn’t been in before, that’s what he said. We learned that had been said. But he wasn’t stubborn; he was scared. Others were, too. They didn’t know what was going to happen or how they were going to be treated or accepted or—they just didn’t know. They had to find out for themselves. So that was how integration got started here and it did real well. It was a smooth change.BRINSON: Okay. As I understand Owensboro, they had a period of a couple of years
where if you were in a black—if you were a black in Western High School and there was a course that wasn’t being offered there, you could go to the white high school and take just that course.HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: Which sounds like what your son did.
HAYDEN: Uh-hmm.
BRINSON: And I understand also ROTC and some science courses were also
possibilities. Do you know what kind of history it was that he was taking?HAYDEN: No, I don’t. He belonged to the—he joined the ROTC.
BRINSON: Did he?
HAYDEN: And he was a sharpshooter on a team. And one night the commander and a
colonel of the ROTC came to our home to see him. The team was to go to Murray, Kentucky to compete. They came to our home that night to tell him that he couldn’t go, that they had no facilities for him, for blacks. He couldn’t go. He said, “Well”--and they told who they were taking--and he said, “Well, you’re not taking the team.” I didn’t have anything to say. I just waited in the other room and listened. I didn’t have any input. I let him do his own talking, and that’s what he told them. And so he couldn’t go.BRINSON: He didn’t go?
HAYDEN: He didn’t go. And that was terrible.
BRINSON: It was terrible. Tell me about—is your son living today?
HAYDEN: Yes, yes.
BRINSON: Is he here in Owensboro?
HAYDEN: No, he’s in Switzerland. He’s a professional musician.
BRINSON: Switzerland?
HAYDEN: Uh-huh.
BRINSON: Wow.
HAYDEN: I’m hoping he’ll be home in a couple of weeks which he hasn’t been for
about four years.BRINSON: What kind of musician is he?
HAYDEN: He plays the upright bass. This is his picture over here. [interruption]
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A
BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE B
HAYDEN: . . . and she has R.V. to represent her husband as a bassist and they
have a concert in New York—I do have a paper that, with him playing the bass. She has a big group when she puts on a concert. And he and a white fellow are the two bassists in this group.BRINSON: Now the photo of Reginald that you just showed me . . .
HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: . . . it looks like he has very light skin.
HAYDEN: Yeah.
BRINSON: Do you think that had anything to do with—was that another reason that
he might have been selected as the first group?HAYDEN: To go out to the . . .
BRINSON: To go out to the white high school?
HAYDEN: No, because there were others that were darker.
BRINSON: Good. And, and your other two sons were much younger?
HAYDEN: Yeah. Ten years between my first one and the second one. He lives in
Bowling Green. His name is James A. Johnson and he works for, works on plants, Apple Company. And he visits me on weekends.BRINSON: Okay. And how old would he have been when he started to attend an
integrated school?HAYDEN: When the schools were integrated, he was to have gone from where we
lived to Estes up on Leitchfield Road.BRINSON: Estes? Is that E-s-t-e-s?
HAYDEN: E-s-t-e-s. And he didn’t go that first year; he stayed at Western. I
mean, that’s where he was going. And he stayed there for one year.BRINSON: Now, is Estes a high school?
HAYDEN: No.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: No, it’s a grade school.
BRINSON: Okay. Was Western more than a high school?
HAYDEN: Western . . . it went from sixth grade to twelve.
BRINSON: I see. Okay.
HAYDEN: Yeah. So then the next year, uh, he went to Western—I mean . . .
BRINSON: Went to Estes.
HAYDEN: Yes. Estes is what I’m trying to say. And, uh, so from then on he was
integrated, you know. He graduated from Senior High.BRINSON: Okay. And your third son.
HAYDEN: Third is Charles A. Johnson. Uh, he started—we lived on Breckinridge
Street and the school right down the street was . . . uh, uh, uh, my brain’s not very. . . . There was a school on Seventh Street between Center and Triplett where he would have gone; but since this school was on Breckinridge Street and right down the street from us, I got permission for him to start there. So all he had to do was just walk down the sidewalk to school. Oh, can’t think of the name of the school.BRINSON: That’s okay. It was a--was it a . . .?
HAYDEN: It was a grade school.
BRINSON: And was it an integrated school . . .
HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: . . . at that point? Okay. So he really started . . .
HAYDEN: He started with integration.
BRINSON: Okay. I want to go back to when Reginald went out to take the history
course. How did you feel about all that?HAYDEN: Well, I thought it was the right thing to do, I mean, the integration
part of it. And, uh, I thought eventually it would be okay, and we needed some of the, some of the things that they had out there that other students were getting that black students weren’t. I thought we had a right to it. The reason—one of the reasons we learned about this was the help that they had cleaning schools. They would tell us, “Well, they got so-and-so and the kids,” you know, “the kids do this and the kids do that.” And we didn’t have it in our schools. They had equipment that we didn’t have, didn’t know about it.BRINSON: Do you remember specifically what kind of equipment or . . .?
HAYDEN: No.
BRINSON: . . . what kinds of programs they had out there?
HAYDEN: No, I don’t.
BRINSON: Okay. Uh, were you a little nervous for your son though?
HAYDEN: No.
BRINSON: No?
HAYDEN: I knew him. I knew what type of person he was. He wasn’t going to
destroy anything. He wasn’t a violent person. I knew he was going always be a gentleman. I knew that about him.BRINSON: You knew that about him, but was there any concern about how the white
students might treat him?HAYDEN: Yeah, I was, I was concerned about that. That’s the reason, uh,
[laughing] Miss Fisher said he was stubborn cause he was kind of wary. He didn’t know what they would do. One of the times when the ROTC was, uh--they’d gone on a trip somewhere, locally, and they went in a restaurant for something to eat. He bought a hamburger and one of the people I worked for—their son and R.V. were friends. R.V. said, “He’d buy steak and I’d buy hamburger.” ‘Cause that’s all the money he had. Well, that was different, you know. But, uh, after he made some friends with some of them, it was okay.BRINSON: Okay. When, when the schools finally became totally integrated in
Owensboro, what happened to the black teachers?HAYDEN: Oh, yeah, they—some of them are . . . they were mixed in with the
whites, the different schools, some of them were.BRINSON: Some of them were. What about the others?
HAYDEN: They all had a place. They would—wasn’t anybody let go that I can
remember. They had a place for everybody.BRINSON: Okay. I want to talk with you a minute about in the early sixties here
as in, as around the country, there were the sit-ins and the demonstrations in restaurants and movies and whatnot. Was there an effort here that you remember like that?HAYDEN: I didn’t take part in any exercise of that kind. I know my pastor at the
time was Reverend J.B.A. Winsett.BRINSON: Winston?
HAYDEN: Winsett. W-i-n-s-e-t-t.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: And he went to Walgreen’s Drugstore--they had a soda fountain--and he
went there, paved the way for us. And he came back to church and told us that you could go. You know he, he did a lot of that. He went to a movie theater and he went to restaurants. He did a lot of that on his own. He was, uh, different sort of person.BRINSON: Did he sit-in at the lunch counter?
HAYDEN: Yes, yes. He was accepted.
BRINSON: Was he active, do you know, with the NAACP?
HAYDEN: Yes, he was.
BRINSON: Okay. Were there any other civil rights groups here in town or that you
were aware of besides the NAACP?HAYDEN: I don’t remember if there were.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: But that’s the way we were informed was through our churches. The
ministers would let us know what, what we could do, where we could go, you know, what doors were open.BRINSON: How, how did the police handle the sit-ins here or the city leaders?
HAYDEN: I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember any disturbances.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: I don’t. There may have been but I just don’t remember. I can’t recall
none of that.BRINSON: Nobody got arrested that you know of?
HAYDEN: Not that I know of.
BRINSON: Okay. What about the buses here? I imagine at one point they were
segregated seating on the buses. You ever ride any of the buses to . . .?HAYDEN: When I was going to school, we rode streetcars and it wasn’t—we sit
anywhere you wanted to on a street car.BRINSON: Really?
HAYDEN: And for a long time we didn’t have any city buses, and, uh, I don’t
remember being segregated on them, on any of those vehicles.BRINSON: And, uh, African Americans have always been able to vote in Owensboro?
HAYDEN: As far as I know.
BRINSON: Okay. Well, you know, in some southern states you couldn’t vote . . .
HAYDEN: We voted.BRINSON: . . . but in Kentucky you could.
HAYDEN: Yeah
BRINSON: Okay. Is there anything else that you’d like to tell me about the whole
movement here to eliminate segregation? Did you have any friends who were involved? What about your husband?HAYDEN: Oh, my husband was a mild-mannered man. He wasn’t going to get involved
in anything. He was just going to take it as . . . I mean that’s just the type of person he was. That’s where R.V. got some of his, I suppose.BRINSON: How about in later years now, ‘cause you’ve had, you’ve had two
husbands right?HAYDEN: Yes, this is my second one. He’s not going to get involved in anything either.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: He’s mild-mannered, too. Quiet person. I have pulled him out into some
things, wasn’t for me he wouldn’t have been involved.BRINSON: What kinds of things was, was that?
HAYDEN: Oh, different meetings and . . . conventions I guess you would say.
BRINSON: Conventions? What, what kinds of conventions?
HAYDEN: Oh, maybe of a, somebody, some of these things and I wanted to go, he’ll
go if I wanted to go. He wouldn’t have gone on his own. I mean, he’s that kind of person. I like to know what’s happening.BRINSON: How do you, how do you keep up with knowing what’s happening now?
HAYDEN: I read.
BRINSON: You read.
HAYDEN: I read and listen to the TV.
BRINSON: But now you’re having a problem with your vision.
HAYDEN: I would always look for something to go to. I was always looking for
something to go to. Something that was interesting, and it was--would give you knowledge of certain things.BRINSON: What, what kinds of things were you particularly interested in knowing
more about?HAYDEN: What’s happening. I was, I’m just a nosy person. I was always sticking
my nose in cracks and corners, wanting to find out this, find out that.BRINSON: Okay. Were these things about what was going on in the community?
HAYDEN: Yes, sometimes. And the places surrounding Owensboro.
BRINSON: Did anybody famous ever come to Owensboro to talk that you went to hear?
HAYDEN: What did you say?
BRINSON: Anyone famous ever come to Owensboro to talk at a meeting that you went
to hear?HAYDEN: Hmm. Caught me off guard. I can’t remember. When you get this age your
memory is short.BRINSON: Well, I asked you that because yesterday I talked to Wesley Acton . . .
HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: . . . and he recalled--before he was born--he recalled that on the farm
where he grew up that George Washington Carver had come one time to give a talk.HAYDEN: Oh, I didn’t know that.
BRINSON: And he just heard about it, you know. It was kind of passed down from
one generation to another, but, uh . . .HAYDEN: I didn’t know about that. I know Roscoe Simmons was a great orator,
black guy, and when they had the Chautauqua, Black Chautauqua, they had him to come here and speak one time. He was there.BRINSON: Roscoe Simmons?
HAYDEN: Roscoe Simmons, yeah. I was a child.
BRINSON: You remember that?
HAYDEN: Uh-hmm. Yeah, we lived on Jackson Street across from the school, as I
told you, and mother and I walked . . . mother—I guess that’s where I get my nosy, nosy business.BRINSON: From your mother?
HAYDEN: I guess. Mother wanted to see—she would always go to things like that.
She carried me. And we walked from Jackson Street—let’s see, how did we go? We went through Eighth Street to Hall and straight out Hall Street to Eighteenth Street and Eighteenth Street to the fairgrounds. That’s where the Chautauqua was held. That’s the way we got out there. Yeah, I was a child. Mother was carrying me by the hand but I remember that. And people, some of the people that could afford it, lived—there was a building on the fairgrounds, and they lived there the whole week that the Chautauqua was going on. They separated theirselves by quilts and blankets, you know.BRINSON: The people who were performing lived there?
HAYDEN: Whether they were performing or just there for the event. They lived
there the whole week of Chautauqua. They had something going on every night there, but I just remember going out there that one time.BRINSON: Who were your civil rights heroes?
HAYDEN: Civil rights what? Leaders?
BRINSON: Heroes.
HAYDEN: Leaders.
BRINSON: Heroes.
HAYDEN: Oh, oh, I don’t know. Martin Luther King. I guess that’s the only one I
followed more.BRINSON: I, I understand that here in 1968 there was a little race riot around
an ice cream store here in town; and, of course, in 1968 there were riots happening around the country. Do you remember that here in Owensboro at all?HAYDEN: I think we did have some little incidents. I don’t recall all of it. But
it didn’t amount to very much I don’t think.BRINSON: Do you know what that was all about?
HAYDEN: Unless it was not getting service fast enough or something. I don’t
know. I just imagine.BRINSON: Okay. In many black schools, earlier times, the school functioned not
only as a place to learn but also as a community center for the black community so other events went on there, people stayed in touch, uh, and even after the black schools were, were closed down because of integration or were integrated, I’m finding as I talk to people around Kentucky that many of these black schools even today have reunions.HAYDEN: Have reunions? Yes.
BRINSON: Is that true with the black school here?
HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: Can you tell me about that?
HAYDEN: I attended one. My husband didn’t get to go to school so I don’t drag
him to those things. So I only attended one. They had it at the Executive Inn and saw some old classmates, friends I hadn’t seen for years. It was nice. I think now they have it every two years. Uh, one time it was a class and now I think they just call it a Western High School reunion. I think.BRINSON: How many people do you think were there when you went to that one?
HAYDEN: Oh, it was a lot. There were a lot of people.
BRINSON: Say, a couple of hundred?
HAYDEN: Yeah, perhaps.
BRINSON: Okay. Is there anything else that you can think of to tell me about
this whole period? You think things are any better now after the sixties and the civil rights . . .?HAYDEN: In most places or most . . . there’s still some things that should be
taken care of or done differently. I can’t put my finger on it but it’s better.BRINSON: How are they better?
HAYDEN: Better than the way that—well, we can go to the bank and get money now,
which we couldn’t, you know. If you’ve got a logical reason, in need. We didn’t have jobs which afforded us that years ago. The job situation is a little better; our earnings are a little better. But, still there is some discrepancy and paychecks, according to the work you do to the fellow next to you, if he’s white and you’re black. Not everyplace . . . some plants, even the police force. The, uh, promotions, it’s a little tricky sometimes. You hear some of the policemen speak about it. It could be a big issue and that could be a big disturbance if they wanted to start something.BRINSON: So there are black policemen in Owensboro?
HAYDEN: Yes, yes.
BRINSON: But they don’t feel that they’re given the same opportunities to be promoted?
HAYDEN: That’s right.
BRINSON: And in the plants, that’s true here locally, too, but any specific
plants that you know about or heard about?HAYDEN: Well, now, uh, I’ve got a friend, a distant relative, that has won his
case but he hasn’t gotten the money yet. It’s an aluminum plant, I think, where he worked, up Highway 60 somewhere, and he was accused of not doing his job, I think, and, uh, he was fired. I don’t know all the details. You don’t learn all the details when something like that goes on. And so he was fired and he got a lawyer out of Louisville and proved him wrong so--accused him of this, accused him of that and he was doing the same thing. But he won his case but he hasn’t got his money yet. And then there was a fellow that belonged, that worked at the OMU.BRINSON: What does not stand for?
HAYDEN: Owensboro Municipal Utilities.
BRINSON: Okay.
HAYDEN: And, uh, I heard a little bit of it on TV cause it was on the, uh, the
program that they have where you can attend the meetings. I didn’t know this man. And they say he couldn’t do the work and he was fired.BRINSON: And these are things that are happening today.
HAYDEN: Yeah, see it’s a small thing in a way but yet it’s a big thing for us.
You want your job and, uh, so he proves them wrong. So he kept his job but I bet he’s having a hard time. I don’t know.BRINSON: You mentioned the banks. Uh, let’s talk about that a little bit more.
That’s, uh-- you’re saying that, that banks would not, uh, work with black people for a period.HAYDEN: I don’t think they did too much of that. Uh, you’ve got to have
collateral; we didn’t have.BRINSON: So you’re talking about like if you wanted to take a bank loan?
HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: The banks wouldn’t honor that. But if you wanted to get checks cashed
or you have an account—is, have they ever denied . . .HAYDEN: No, I don’t think so.
BRINSON: . . . blacks in this community?
HAYDEN: I don’t think, I don’t think they denied cashing checks unless they suspicioned.
BRINSON: So it’s the loans. And, of course, you need the loans to start
businesses . . .HAYDEN: That’s right.
BRINSON: . . . and buy property. Is that any better?
HAYDEN: I think it is. Yeah, I think that is.
BRINSON: Are you—do you know about the group called the Commission of Human
Relations that was . . .HAYDEN: Yeah, the Human Relations . . . yeah.
BRINSON: . . . started here in ’63?
HAYDEN: Yeah.
BRINSON: Have you had any experience with them?
HAYDEN: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Wilbert’s brother lived next door--the house has been torn
down now--and Wilbert has a shop out back. He’s always out there piddling, working on something. And the brother came over and said, “Wilbert, I think they charged me too much.” He had them—what did he have them doing, Wilbert? Putting a new roof on?Wilbert: Huh?
HAYDEN: Those people that gypped Roy. Was Roy having them put a roofing on? What
did he have them doing over there, you know? You’ve forgotten? His memory’s bad. He had them doing something and he come over there with his paper . . .Wilbert: He had somebody put a roof on ( )
HAYDEN: I know. I was just trying to find out what it was they did. And he said,
“I think they charged too much. I think they gypped me.” And brought the papers over to me and I said, “Oh yeah, Roy.” The amount of money that they charged shouldn’t have been that much, two hundred and some dollars I think it was. They didn’t do that much. And I called the Human Relations, uh--Wilma Randolph was the head of Human Relations at that time. I called her and told her what happened. She said, “You tell Mr. Roy to come up here.” So he took his papers and went up there, and they delved into it and found out these people were crooks. He took them in this car up to the loan company where he has some savings and got the money for them and paid them. So if it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t have got that money back. I mean, I was alert enough and aware enough of what was going on to know that was wrong.BRINSON: And you knew where to go.
HAYDEN: Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. I read and I listen to TV to know
such things as that.BRINSON: Right. Is Wilma Randolph still living?
HAYDEN: Yes, she’s, she’s not the head of the Human Relations anymore. She sings
and she has, uh--she works with children. She takes them out at Christmastime to shop, out to, out to the shopping malls. She gives programs for them. She sings in churches and different . . .BRINSON: She still lives in Owensboro?
HAYDEN: Yes.
BRINSON: Did you ever think about leaving Owensboro?
HAYDEN: Leaving Owensboro? I wish I had. [laughing]
BRINSON: Where do you think you would have liked to have gone?
HAYDEN: I don’t know. I don’t know. I have been to Washington; I’ve been to New
York; I’ve been to Little Rock, Arkansas; I’ve been to St. Louis; I’ve been to Louisville lot of times. I have a brother up there. I don’t know. Just get out of Owensboro. But I’m g;ad I lived here. I like Owensboro.BRINSON: Okay. Thank you very much.
END OF INTERVIEW
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