Oral History Interview with Abby Marlatt

BETSY BRINSON: This is February 2, 1999. This is an interview with Dr. Abby Marlatt in her residence in Lexington Kentucky and the interviewer is Betsy Brinson. Shall I call you Dr. Marlatt?

ABBY MARLATT: Whatever feels comfortable to you is fine with me.

BRINSON: Okay, okay. Could we begin, please, by you telling me about some of your personal background? For example when and where you were born, your growing up, your family, your education.

MARLATT: Now I’m not a native Kentuckian. I was born in Kansas, in Manhattan, Kansas, December 5, 1916 and I was an only child. I went to elementary school in Manhattan just two blocks from my home.

BRINSON: Manhattan, Kansas?

MARLATT: Uh-hmm. And then to the junior high and high school there and then, since the college was, Kansas State University now, was only three blocks in another direction from my house, it never occurred to me from the time that I was in kindergarten that I wouldn’t, you know, complete my education by going through college which I did. And that occurred, I graduated from college in 1938. My major was in the general area of home economics specially dietetics and institution management. This meant that in order to be qualified as a dietician it was necessary for me to take a year’s internship after my college degree. And for that I went to University of California at Berkeley to their certificate program. And entered that in January of 1939 and finished the certificate in `41 having also taken some graduate work in nutrition and dietetics there. And then Dr. Agnus Fay Morgan who was head of the department there at the time said, “Well, now, you don’t need to stop now. You are well on your way to a Ph.D. Why don’t you just go ahead and start in, and we’ll give you a teaching assistantship; and you can work for your degree.” So, that was what I did and I was there until the summer of `45, uhmm, when I had almost all my work done, and all except for writing the dissertation. So then I took a position back at my alma mater and my first real teaching position was as an Assistant Professor in Foods and Nutrition at Kansas State University.

BRINSON: Tell me about your parents.

MARLATT: My father was a native of Manhattan. His father had homesteaded there in the mid-1800’s. And my mother was born in Illinois. Her parents migrated to Nebraska and then finally to California, and she grew up in California. She was, my father was born in 1867. My mother was born in 1877. So at the age of about eleven, when she was eleven, the family went by train from Nebraska to California, three-day trip. And there were seven children in the family, one of them a baby in arms. You can imagine how this was in coach with those woven grass seats, taking all the food you needed along with you.

BRINSON: I, understand that …

MARLATT: Then she went ahead and became a teacher, an elementary teacher there. And then, uhmm, was persuaded by a brother-in-law a little later that when he had gone to Boston to take theological training, her sister was lonesome so far from all of her friends in California to be in Boston, Massachusetts was a long way away. So, my uncle persuaded my mother to come to Boston and live with them and help his wife not be so homesick, also take care of the children.

And in the meanwhile he held out to Kera that she could go to Simmons College which was then offering a two-year course in domestic science. And so, she finished that course and then she was qualified to teach at the college level in courses related to foods particularly. And she found there was an opening at Kansas State Agricultural College. Looked at the map and thought, well, that’s about halfway back home to California. I can do this jump now and I’ll take the next jump, you know, in a few years. But when she got to Kansas she met my father and five years later they were married. So she settled in Kansas.

BRINSON: Right. I understand that some of your family back in the 19th century may have been involved with the abolition effort?

MARLATT: Yeah, my grandfather whose name was Washington Marlatt, my paternal grandfather actually as a young man in eastern Indiana was trained partly as a minister. He had a classical education at what was then Asbury University, later as DePauw and now DePauw University. And he, after he had farmed on his father’s farm for a year or so had enough money put aside from a good harvest, he decided that he would go out to Kansas and see what it was all about. Because about 1854 or so was the great push, after the Kansas Nebraska Act, to try to see if they were going to have more settlers who opposed slavery, or anti-slavery. And the territories were going to decide for themselves whether they were going to be slave or free. So he made the trek all by himself on a riverboat, first down the Ohio River and up to St. Louis and then across from St. Louis to Kansas City Missouri River. And from there Wyandotte then, he made arrangements with a group who were, uhmm, going to settle in what later became Zeandale which is in Wabaunsee County just next to Eastern Riley County, which is where Manhattan is now. And walked out with them, this was a wagon train taking a group of settlers out. This was Beecher’s Bible and Rifle Group so they were from the New England states. He had the money that, in gold coins in his belt around his waist, he sort of, you know, walked at the end and looked out for stragglers and kept trail on who was following him and so forth. And so after several days they arrived at the site that they had picked out for their community, and he, out of courtesy, asked the leader, “How much do I owe you for the privilege of walking with you?” And thought that the man would say, ‘oh, well, you’ve been of service to us there’s no charge.’ But the man said, “That will be ten dollars.” So he had to shell out one of his ten dollar gold pieces to pay for the privilege of walking with them. He looked at land and picked out a sight that he thought he might homestead and built some sort of a little shack and settled in for the winter. But after--I don’t know whether he ever grew a crop on that land or not--he decided that it wasn’t really what he was looking for. And so he shopped around some more and walked all the way from this side of Manhattan out toward Abilene which is another sixty or eighty miles west out to look at land there. And came back and got a homestead on what is now called College Hill just to the northwest of main downtown Manhattan.

BRINSON: And how did he become involved in anti-slavery?

MARLATT: The reason he came to Kansas was that he was hoping to help make it a free state. And he at least used to be recount, this is second hand because my father told me that on the boat coming up from [coughs] St. Louis to Kansas City and Wyandotte, there were lots of pro-slavery people that were shooting off at the mouth and he just decided to keep quite and not say anything since he was obviously in the minority. And now what out of, except for being interested in politics and making sure that his vote counted; and during the Civil War when the raiders came in from Missouri and rampaged over Lawrence, there was the possibility that they might come farther into Kansas. And so the militia, of which he was a part, were mobilized and my grandfather then walked the sixty miles to Topeka to be ready with his unit to defend Topeka, which I think by then was the capitol, against the raiders who were coming in from Missouri. But the threat passed by and they demobilized and he walked back home. But on the grounds that he was in the unit ready to act he then was recognized as a veteran of the Civil War.

BRINSON: I’m impressed with how much detail you have about him that far back. I take it somebody has done some good genealogy or some good record keeping.

MARLATT: My father and one of my uncles was particularly interested in this, yes.

BRINSON: How about any of the women before you in your family?

MARLATT: All right, okay. How did my grandmother, Washington Marlatt’s wife come into the picture? Where did she come from? Well, my grandmother, Julianne Bailey Marlatt was born in Connecticut, and Gale’s Ferry which is on the Thames River not too far from a submarine base now. And she was educated quite well for her time, uhmm, she went to a girl’s academy where she learned languages and writing and some science and learned to draw and to paint. And was very much interested in things like botany and biology and this sort of thing. And I suspect, now I’m not sure; my feeling is probably she was a schoolteacher there in that general area. And one of her former professors at the academy, which was East Bennett Academy, which was actually in north west Rhode Island, had joined the abolitionist movement of getting people to go from New England out to Kansas. And he came through that area recruiting people, and in 1859 what they were doing was trying to establish a post-eighth grade educational institution in the Manhattan area, which they were calling a college. But essentially it took you beyond the eighth grade. And he was looking for a teacher. And it occurred to him that Ms. Bailey might be a possible candidate since she had no family responsibilities. So he prevailed upon her to make this trek out to Kansas. By then I believe they were able, there were trains that came at least to Kansas City, I think. [Coughs] And she was properly chaperoned by her mother who came with her along with Mr. Goodnough. And Isaac T. Goodnough, she then lived in the building that had been, up on the second floor of the building that had been built at this new Beaumont Central College so called, which was just catty-cornered across the road from where my grandfather had homesteaded, and where he built a cabin. And he, my grandfather, was designated as the principal of this new college, and she was designated as the second teacher. And after they had taught together for the year beginning in 1860, I guess through that spring, and the following year in May of 1861 they were married in that Beaumont College building. I think the reason they were married was that he’d come to sort of the end with the other trustees of this school and his thinking was not the same as theirs. And he decided that he couldn’t be a principal there anymore, but since he was a Methodist minister, had his certificate as a deacon he could get a position as a settler minister. And he got one in Atchison, Kansas on the Missouri River right there on the east side. So they took all of their belongings and moved to Atchison. And that was where my, their first two children were born. Then they moved back to, he discovered that being a minister wasn’t very lucrative, especially when the congregation decided that since he had been enterprising enough to make his own garden so he could grow some of the food he needed that they could take the cost of the food off of the amount of cash they were going to pay him for the year for salary. The total amount of cash was going to be five hundred dollars. And they removed some of that because he produced some of his own food.

BRINSON: That Methodist tradition, did it continue in your family? Did you grow up in the Methodist church?

MARLATT: Yes. Yes I grew up in the Methodist Church. And my grandfather besides having that one settlement that I know of also was a circuit rider for the whole area around Manhattan. And as a little girl I went to one of the rural churches in the county just east of Riley County, which is Wabaunsee County to a Pleasant Run Methodist Church. They were having their annual celebration, and everybody who had ever been associated with it tried to come back and all for the reunion. And so they invited my father and his family to come, since he was the son of their first circuit rider who had helped them establish the church in the beginning.

BRINSON: In your growing up were you involved in any social justice issues that you recall?

MARLATT: Uhmm, by the time I was in high school I was certainly aware of social justice issues. We had a very excellent social studies teacher in high school who alerted us to some of the issues. And then when I was in college I became quite active in the student Christian movement, YMCA, YWCA. And I had several positions in the YWCA, including chairman of the college chapter for a couple of years. Uhmm, and we did several kinds of projects. The biggest one, well, [pause] I can’t remember that as an undergraduate I really was involved with any specific activity locally. The issues then had to do with the students who were trying to scrape together enough money to go to college. This was in the depth of the depression; I started in `34. And so there was the Independent Student Union, which was an organization of those students who wanted some social life but couldn’t afford to belong to fraternities and sororities. And that was quite an active organization.

BRINSON: The national YWCA, of course, historically has had as one of its major missions the elimination of racism and in the south, of course, had early on separate YWCA programs and what not.

MARLATT: And I realize in Lexington those ( ) was effort in this direction and of course the YMCA also had two different facilities.

BRINSON: In your growing up did you attend school with African-Americans?

MARLATT: All right, good question. Our schools were, of course, neighborhood schools and by the time I came along a small African-American population in Manhattan did live in a specific area and there was an elementary school, which was designated for them. So it was a segregated elementary school named Douglas Elementary School probably from Frederick A.. But at the junior high level there weren’t enough people to maintain education on a segregated basis beyond that; so at the seventh grade we all came together. So through junior high and high school we were, everybody went to the same school. But since the social patterns had already been set, ah, African Americans tended to keep to themselves. We saw them in class but I can’t say that we really got personally acquainted with the people of African American origin.

BRINSON: Were any of your family involved in partisan politics in any way?

MARLATT: Not specifically, there was a year when my father agreed to be a candidate for mayor of the city. He wasn’t elected. But Riley County at that point was 98 per cent republican I would say, and Kansas has been primarily republican. Occasionally they are able to elect a governor who is a democrat. But I was not aware of even knowing any democrats until my college days, I guess probably.

BRINSON: So your family even voted republican.

MARLATT: Oh, yes.

BRINSON: Ok. Ok. How did you get to Kentucky?

MARLATT: All right. Well, I, we left me at the point, I guess, where I came back to Kansas State after I finished my graduate work. And I did then go back to Berkeley in the summer of 1946 after I had been in Kansas a year, and did work on my dissertation. And it was then awarded then, the Ph.D., degree was awarded in 1947 actually. And I stayed on as a faculty both in teaching and research at Kansas State from when I got there in 1945 until 1956. And during that beginning in 1947, `48 I guess it was, uhmm, the federal laws enacted permitted some research related primarily--was to be used in how we could make use of surplus commodities, but it actually worked out that we studied the nutritional status of various populations groups. And this was a cooperative project with several states involved, the research staff from various states in the central, north central region. And so, Kansas State worked with University of Nebraska, Iowa State, University of Missouri, at Illinois, Purdue, Ohio State were all involved in cooperative research. I’m trying to think. I guess Minnesota was also involved in this. Uhmm, and the group I worked with was particularly interested in nutrition of school children. And so we set up some projects of going into the schools and try to measure the nutritional status and find out what their eating habits were and see what kinds of educational programs we could devise, which would improve the health of the children.

BRINSON: Did the African American community have a very large population in Kansas at that time?

MARLATT: No. Now by the time World War, well, no as I was growing up the answer was no. I think World War II with the various war industries, airplane industry around Wichita and some of the other large industries brought in more African-Americans than had been there previously.

BRINSON: So you were in Kansas in 1954 when the Brown decision came down.

MARLATT: Well as a matter of fact, I wasn’t because in 1953-54 I took a sabbatical and I spent that year in Lebanon. So I actually wasn’t in the United States at that time that decision came out.

BRINSON: Do you remember hearing about the decision at all? Do you remember sort of the climate around you, you know, your friends, your families, sort of what they thought of the decision at all?

MARLATT: No.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay.

MARLATT: Of course by then I had already, in 19, no backing up. I was going to say one of the experiences which was a highpoint in my collegiate experience was the YWCA sponsored summer service project in New York City; in which about thirty-six young people from colleges throughout the United States came for the summer to work in various social service agencies in New York City. And had special seminars to introduce us to all the social issues that they were seeing at the time. It was very well done. And I had friends who were, you know, at Henry Street Settlement and various other settlements. Actually I, my job was as assistant manager and substitute manager in the girls’ residence, called Allen Matthews House, which is on West 11th Street. Really downtown in the village and my job was to help plan the meals and the girls cooperate, who were living there. There were about, I guess eight or ten girls who lived there. They were to plan the meals and buy the groceries for them, since they were hopefully working during the daytime. And then it would be ready for them to cook when they came home to have their cooperative meal in the evening.

BRINSON: I see. So you came to Kentucky in what year?

MARLATT: `56.

BRINSON: And, tell me about that.

MARLATT: All right. I was being urged by the Dean of our college to, you know, think about an administrative position rather than teaching and research. So I had, and I think my name had been sent out among the several people who were looking for new directors of schools or deans of colleges in home economics. And I had several interviews and I came to the University of Kentucky for an interview by Dr. ( ) Erickson who had been here since the late twenties was retiring in `56. And I, we came to a meeting of the minds and I accepted the offer…

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE

BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE

MARLATT: …six and I ( ) a position as Director of the School of Home Economics, which at that point was part of the College of Agriculture and Home Economics. Is it working?

BRINSON: Yes. We’re okay. Just take a minute. In 1956 Kentucky was still a very segregated society.

MARLATT: Yes. But the buses had just been desegregated.

BRINSON: The city buses?

MARLATT: City buses in Lexington. People were concerned about the fact that there was no place in downtown Lexington outside of the cafeteria at the YWCA where any person of color could sit down to eat food. People, and of course, at that time Main Street was the major shopping center, the major source of activity in Lexington. And the big department stores, uhmm, primarily Stewarts but also ( ) and Grants and some of the specialty shops were there. And of course Woolworth’s and McCrory’s and a couple of the other variety stores had lunch counters. And at least one or two of them would prepare food in a bag to take out if you stood at the end of the counter and asked for it. And some African Americans did that, but they would have liked to sit at the lunch counter and eat like everybody else. And it was at that time that some of the students at UK, ah, particularly through the YW and YMCAs decided that they would like to do something about changing this. And I had had previous experience in California where I was working with the American Friends Service Committee and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, some of us had had training in non-violent direct action in the early efforts of CORE.. First trained by Bayard Ruston who was out there to do some training.

BRINSON You were trained by Bayard Ruston?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Oh, you’ll have to tell me about that at some point.

MARLATT: So then when I got to Kansas as a teacher, again I was on the Board of the YWCA and students in both organizations YM and YW decided they would like to do something about eating facilities in a little shopping center just off the corner of the campus which was known as Aggieville. There was no problem if you wanted to eat on campus, of course. But you know you’d like to eat in the drugstores and variety stores in this little shopping center. And, so, we and some of the students, we actually sat in at two of the most popular drugstores there: tried to get them to change. So with that kind of experience then, when I came to Kentucky and in `59 there was an interest in doing something about the fact that in those establishments that served students around the periphery of the campus there was really no place that would serve African Americans. And it was in the late spring of `59 that several students decided that they would test out the little eatery that was at the corner of Columbia and Rose where the faculty club is now. Uhmm, and see, and Charles Smith who had just returned after graduate work in Europe but he was the son of the minister of the Shiloh Baptist Church and brother to William Smith and several other Smith brothers who are ministers here in town. Will Smith has been with the YWCA for many years now. Charles led us and I as a faculty sponsor, why I was involved. And we soon discovered no, we would not be served as a mixed group going into this place. Well we tried to talk with the manager and no meeting of the minds came about. And about then [telephone rings, audio goes off and then back on]. I think it was during the summer that some of us met and decided that maybe, when we began in earnest when the students came back in the fall, a major concern might be downtown rather than just around the campus. So we really gave up trying to do anything right around the campus and went to the variety stores downtown.

BRINSON: Let me stop. How many African-American students approximately, were attending the University of Kentucky at that point? Were there any in the Home Ec. Program for example?

MARLATT: I’m not sure there were any African American students. I can’t quite remember. There have only been a few over the years. And there were a relatively small number of African American students at UK at that time.

BRINSON: Well let me go back to the local YWCA which you said was downtown, and I believe I heard you say their cafeteria was integrated. Is that correct?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Did, were you involved enough with them, at that time, to know whether people supported that integrated cafeteria, people opposed it? Did they just kind of leave them alone? How did that work?

MARLATT: [Coughs] Actually I had very little contact with it except that in 1961 when we were planning an annual meeting of the Lexington C.O.R.E. and had invited James Farmer to be the speaker. We were looking for a place to have a banquet and the only place in central Lexington appeared to be the YWCA. And they did agree that they would open up and prepare a meal for the night. I think their cafeteria operated primarily at noontime.

BRINSON: CORE., the CORE. chapter here started I believed in 1959.

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Can you sort of describe how that came about? Were you involved in the beginning?

MARLATT: Yes. Uhmm, students from UK as I say primarily from the Y’s and some other young people who were involved with the NAACP, uhmm, were interested. We were able to recruit several young people who were high school age at the time, really, primarily from Dunbar High School. And I think it was primarily by word of mouth and friendship that the nucleus group got started. And several other ones who were active including Ms. Julia Lewis who at that time was a registered nurse working at Eastern State Hospital and who was a good friend of Audrey Grevious who was at that time president of the NAACP. Audrey is the sister of Robert Jefferson, our councilperson and she recently retired after a long career as a public school teacher. Audrey was interested and she got Julia interested in working in it, and Julia went into it heart and soul. And for several years was the president of the C.O.R.E. chapter. And Julia was a very active member of the Pleasant ( ) Historic Baptist Church. So that she involved several people from that church including the family of the pastor, Dr. Jones. And so several, two of his sons and his daughter were very active.

BRINSON: So the early CORE. chapter here had approximately how many members?

MARLATT: It varied but we met weekly and I would say the meetings had anywhere from six to ten to twelve people. It was very small, really. Now people at, faculty and some students at the college, which was then the College of the Bible, Lexington Theological Seminary and the Episcopal Theological Seminary, were quite active.

BRINSON: So it had almost an ecumenical basis to it.

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Of, did you have any ongoing contact with other chapters around the state or the country?

MARLATT: Some with the national headquarters, and I can’t remember ever having, met, for example, with representatives of other chapters, no.

BRINSON: And the national headquarters was in New York City, I believe?

MARLATT: In New York at the time.

BRINSON: Did you receive mailings from the national office, newsletters?

MARLATT: Yes, and materials.

BRINSON: Materials. So there were there to support you with information.

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Of the early members, Dr. Marlatt, how did they break down in terms of gender?

MARLATT: Uhmm, maybe a few more women than men, but about half-and-half.

BRINSON: Okay. And how, at your weekly meetings you developed, you discussed issues and developed strategies?

MARLATT: Discussed strategy and action for that week. Primarily we discussed the results of the actions of the previous week and planned action for that week and strategies that we followed.

BRINSON: And Julia Lewis was the first president. I believe you were the first secretary?

MARLATT: I could have been.

BRINSON: It’s interesting that women held visible office in the chapter. What were the relations like between the men and the women?

MARLATT: Very cooperative.

BRINSON: Very cooperative. And when it came to assigning responsibilities for who would do what how did that work out?

MARLATT: For the negotiating teams I think there were almost always at least one man on the negotiating teams when we had to go talk to the managers about their policies and urge them to change their policies. Representatives of the Lexington Theological Seminary included Dr. Louis Smythe and his wife, Dr. Margaret Smythe who was also the student health physician at Berea College. They came back to the United States after a number of years of being missionaries in China. Smythe is spelled S M Y T H E. Uhmm and he was a very well thought of professor at Lexington Theological Seminary, and was very active in the Christian Church. And one of the students, theological students there was Dan Garrison, and he was very active in the group for several years. He was white.

BRINSON: And the Smythe’s were white.

MARLATT: Now from Lexington Theological Cemetery it was David Branson, B R A N S O N, Branson, Bronson, B R O N S O N, I guess Bronson who was on the faculty there. And I think from time to time there were students but I don’t specifically remember them at this point.

BRINSON: Did the chapter grow in numbers over time? Or did it …

MARLATT: There was a, as I recall, a fairly small nucleus, but now, when we planned special events you could bring in many more people. And what we did was recruit from the various churches that had African American membership, of course.

BRINSON: Okay. Tell me about the, I think 1961 meeting that, uhmm you had, that you had at the YMCA.

MARLATT: It was an annual meeting and as I said a dinner meeting in which James Farmer had been invited to come in as the national speaker.

BRINSON: Okay. And do you remember how large of a group turnout?

MARLATT: I guess there were probably maybe a hundred people or more. It filled the room we had anyway.

BRINSON: Okay. Can you talk some of the specific program and strategies that the Chapter undertook in those early years?

MARLATT: Well, I, first efforts had to do with lunch counters in the variety stores, and the idea was first of all to discover what the situation really was. We had rumors and people had reported that they weren’t served. It was, let’s find out. So we would send in a team of at least three, and preferably four to six people mixed black and white who would attempt to sit at the lunch counter and attempt to order. And Caucasians were agreed that they would defer to the blacks and unless the blacks were served they wouldn’t be served either. Or in some cases they attempted to share their food with their partners. And if they weren’t served they would sit there for a designated length of time waiting to be served. And since this, the students had time at lunch time and that was when we did it, and that was of course, the heavy time for the lunch counters downtown. So you really occupied several of their spaces, and people were waiting to be served, and here they weren’t serving you and you were occupying a seat. And when you discovered that, well, the first, of course, attempt when obviously you weren’t being served then, you, we tried to contact the manager and set up a time when a team might go see the manager. Talk about the policy and the fact that it would be to his advantage to serve everyone. And then if you got a negative, then you planned to have sit-ins in which over a number of days throughout the week you would try to get in with several people who would occupy seats at a lunch counter.

BRINSON: Were there ever any arrests?

MARLATT: No. I don’t believe there ever were at lunch counters. Uhmm, we had the foresight to talk with the Chief of Police ahead of time about what we had in mind; and what we were trying to do; and that it was non-violent. And this was Chief Hale who was a native Lexingtonian, who grew up on ( ) Street just behind Lexington Theological Center. And he was amenable to trying to maintain order and therefore if there were hoodlums who were going to try to cause trouble he would see that police were there to keep the hoodlums from causing trouble.

BRINSON: Of the people who participated in the sit-ins, it was a mixed group racially?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: And again, how did it tend to break down in terms of men and women?

MARLATT: There probably were more women than men but there was always a good smattering of fellows.

BRINSON: Why do you think that that might be that there were more women than men?

MARLATT: Well, I don’t know that I really ever analyzed it whether women were more aware of discrimination because as the minority sex they felt discriminated against. I don’t know. Therefore, they also related to the other discrimination. This is maybe a part of it.

BRINSON: Okay. And was the CORE. Chapter working with the local NAACP at this time?

MARLATT: The relationships were fairly cordial in terms of working together for rallies and this sort of thing.

BRINSON: But were the NAACP members actually involved in the sit-ins with you?

MARLATT: Yes, and if you interview Audrey Grevious you will discover that she has a very interesting tale, which you may have already heard. Uhmm, we were at H. H. Green’s which was one of the variety stores and Mr., was it Wisenburger who was the manager, we were there one Saturday, I think. And the lunch counter was over at the side toward the back and so you walked through part of the store to get to the lunch counter. And this was after we had attempted to fill his lunch counter with patrons several times, so that he decided to put up a chain fence designation separating the lunch counter from the rest of the store. And then he stood at the end and let people in to the lunch counter area; and there was a long end of this, was a steel chain that was hanging there. And as he stood there he swung the chain. And Audrey was the first in line waiting to be the next one seated at the lunch counter and he purposely swung the chain against her legs. And did enough damage so that even today she’s aware of the injury that was done to her

shins.

BRINSON: During this period were there any, were there outsiders who, see, how shall I ask this here? Was there any violence going on in the community in the way of retaliation or expression against what you and the CORE. members and the NAACP were trying to do?

MARLATT: The papers, the local, of course the Leader and the Herald were not together yet. There was a morning and an evening paper. Herald was the morning paper. Leader was the evening paper then. [Coughs] And their editorials were rather antagonistic; and the, Mr. Wachs was, what, the publisher at that point, I think. And he was personally very much opposed to what was, to the disruption of the downtown, and obviously these were communists tinged people who were causing all the trouble.

BRINSON: How about the university administration and your colleagues? How were they receiving you in terms of your involvement with all of this?

MARLATT: I felt that if my involvement were out of school hours that it was my privilege to do as I felt I needed to do. Uhmm, the people, uhmm, in this school, some of them were sympathetic to what I was doing but not sympathetic to the point that they would join me. Others were very antagonistic and felt that I was damaging the school and that they really wanted to distance themselves from me because of this.

BRINSON: And did they tell you that?

MARLATT: In body language, yes.

BRINSON: In body language. Okay. Was there any involvement of the KKK or White Citizen Council?

MARLATT: Teenage hoodlums I would think, white teenage hoodlums were more involved. I don’t remember any specific activity that could have been assigned to KKK.

BRINSON: Okay, okay. So after the sit-ins what happened next for CORE.?

MARLATT: Well, you asked a question which I really didn’t answer: what did the university administration think of this, and what action did they take if any? Well, uhmm, Dr. Dickey was the president at that point and I was called into his office one day. He said that, ‘he thought I should be aware that my activities were impacting negatively on the finances of the university because some of the businessmen downtown were refusing to give their usual contributions because of activities of some of the faculty and students against businesses downtown.’

BRINSON: And other than letting you know this did he…?

MARLATT: He did not threaten me in any way.

BRINSON: Did he recommend to you that you…?

MARLATT: I’m sure that he hoped I would say that I would cease and desist. I think I told him that I believed that, uhmm, desegregation was the thing that was right and should happen in the community and that I felt that I needed to be involved in seeing that it happened.

BRINSON: So other than the sit-ins how else was the CORE. Chapter involved here during those years?

MARLATT: Well, some of the people were then involved with movie theaters and of course on the north side of Main Street there was the Ben Ali. There was another one was it the Palace? I can’t quite remember. Uhmm, and then of course, the Kentucky Theater where it is now. Uhmm, the Ben Ali and the other one on the north side of Main Street both had balconies, I believe. Now you’ll have to get this from somebody else. And therefore, blacks could attend but they came in by the back stairs and into the balcony and not onto the main floor. So what the group decided to do was to stand in line for tickets and intersperse blacks along the line so that--and if they were told that they wouldn’t be served--uhmm they couldn’t buy a ticket there, well you would say, ‘well I’ll wait for my friend who is here first.’ I’ll wait for him to get a ticket first before I’ll buy a ticket. And that time some arrests were made for blocking the sidewalk, this kind of thing. And some of the young people were taken into custody and then released. Some of them might have spent overnight in jail. I’m not sure. And some of us on this was involved with bailing them out.

BRINSON: Were the arrests of both black and white participants?

MARLATT: [Coughs] I think there may have been, but I’m aware [pause] ( ) specific persons I’m aware of who were arrested were black. And I’m a little fuzzy about how many people were involved in. And then, of course, after we worked on the theaters, and of course, the final result of these activities was passing the ordinances by both the city and the county for nondiscrimination in public accommodations. And after that then young people began to work on employment opportunities. And Stewarts had the big store downtown then and they realized that Stewarts didn’t have any clerks who were black. And they felt that if blacks were buying products there, there should be blacks employed in positions other than janitor, elevator operators. And so they did picket that and that did …

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE

MARLATT: Remember when we celebrated at the Kentucky Theater with a big theater party in which we got twenty-five or thirty people all to go to the Kentucky Theater to go so we could all sit together at the Kentucky Theater and see, I think it was Oliver Twist that was on at the time.

BRINSON: Okay. Now the local ordinance that you all were successful in having enacted was that before the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

MARLATT: I believe so. Now you might need to check this and see. I’m a little fuzzy about dates. And of course, Bart Peak, who was the county judge at the time, had been the YMCA director at UK before he retired and decided to be to run for county judge. So he was very sympathetic with the efforts of the group. I don’t remember specific personalities on the city council at that point because this was prior to the merger.

BRINSON: Now the judge was white himself?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Ok. The merger happened?

MARLATT: `67, I think.

BRINSON: The merger of the city and county council.

MARLATT: County council.

BRINSON: I understand also that there was a demonstration against the city newspaper I believe in 1963 that CORE sort of provided the leadership for. Do you have any recollection of that? Again around employment issues.

MARLATT: No I don’t .

BRINSON: Okay. Uhmm, how about economic boycotts of stores that refused to integrate?

MARLATT: They did try that and I think that was an effort primarily by the black community. I don’t remember how much of the total community might have been involved with this. I might say though in terms of total community, this activity of C.O.R.E. and the activists did gain support from various church groups who finally organized as the Lexington Committee on Religion and Human Rights, which was very active in the early sixties. And met at the YMCA on West Second Street, Jefferson, what’s now Jefferson Place which was originally the nurses home for St. Joseph’s Hospital, when St. Joseph was where the public housing project is now. [Chuckles] They met very actively and could be counted on for support for mass meeting and for general support and efforts to change the opinions of government officials and so on.

BRINSON: Were you part of that group also?

MARLATT: Yes. But I wasn’t a leader in that group.

BRINSON: I believe there was a woman named Laura Massey?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Who was their general secretary?

MARLATT: Yes that was Mrs. William Massey.

BRINSON: What can you tell me about her? I don’t know anything at all.

MARLATT: Well, I think she was a member of Second Presbyterian Church, and a very lovely person. And I don’t know if she was active on the Board of the YWCA although she might have been. But she was a very, uhmm, strong motivating force who was able to garner in a lot of community support. And her husband, who was an orthopedic surgeon, was well thought of in the community. And she has retired to California and I understand she is not very well.

BRINSON: Was she originally from Lexington or from Kentucky?

MARLATT: I’m not sure. She was a long time resident. She might have been native. I’m not sure.

BRINSON: During this time there was a CORE. Chapter I believe in Louisville?

MARLATT: There may, I don’t remember any real contacts with them. We were aware of some of the activities in Louisville and we were aware of Martin Luther King’s brother who was a minister in Louisville and was heading up some of the civil rights activities.

BRINSON: Did CORE eventually move to having a paid director or some paid staff?

MARLATT: No.

BRINSON: No. What was Ronald Barry’s affiliation with CORE?

MARLATT: Well, when we started probably in 1959 at least, I guess, by the fall of 1959, he was a student at Dunbar High School. And was one of those high school young people who became active. Pat Vinegar was another. I can probably dredge up the names of some other people, too.

BRINSON: Pat Vinegar is?

MARLATT: Patricia Vinegar, she also is married. I’m not sure of the last name, Thompson.

BRINSON: Is she still living?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: And she’s in the area?

MARLATT: Yes. That would be a good person to interview. She was the Secretary of C.O.R.E. for several years. She lived over on Spegal Heights. There were several people whom we recruited from the Spegal Heights area. Are you aware of Spegal Heights?

BRINSON: Tell me about that.

MARLATT: It’s off Versailles Road just after you cross the overpass on the right hand side. And it’s up the hill, ah, from Irish Town. And the people who lived on Spegal Heights looked down their noses at those low cast people who lived down there in Irish Town.

BRINSON: I see.

MARLATT: The ones up here were black and the ones down here were white.

BRINSON: And Patricia Vinegar lived where?

MARLATT: In Spegal Heights.

BRINSON: Ok. She was white or black?

MARLATT: Black.

BRINSON: So Spegal Heights was not, was it an integrated community?

MARLATT: No, it was pretty much black community. Julia Lewis lived there. The Barry family lived there.

BRINSON: But they were African Americans who were more middle class.

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Okay. At what point did CORE sort of cease to see it’s mission having been to be completed? What happened?

MARLATT: What happened to CORE was Black Power. This came in nationally and in 1968, I remember very distinctly a meeting at which, uhmm, there were probably fifteen or twenty people at the meeting, and there were probably three or four of us who were not black who were at the meeting. And we were told that, “honkys were no longer [clears throat] accepted and we could leave, thank you.”

BRINSON: That was here at a local meeting?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: How was that? How did you react to that?

MARLATT: Well, I thought we’ve done our best, and if they don’t want us then all right.

BRINSON: Who were the other white people, if you remember, that were active with CORE at that point?

MARLATT: Well, the Smythe’s were still active. Uhmm, can’t remember whether Dan Garrison was still active or not. Uhmm, [pause]…

BRINSON: Did you all attempt to debate that?

MARLATT: No.

BRINSON: Did you feel, how did you feel about it?

MARLATT: That was a very angry meeting. We just left. But interestingly enough within the next year, it was Ron Barry who contacted me and said, “I need help. I have this great idea about starting a youth organization, which I’d like, to model after the local government; because I think if youth had a feeling about how local government was run, and some understanding of it, that there would be less violence. And maybe the local government would understand the youth better too, if they were to shadow some of the local government people for a certain number of days. In other words we’ll set up a city council and have a mayor; have a police force and we’ll run a recreation program, employment program, motivational program, so forth.” And that was the way micro-city government got started in 1969.

BRINSON: What was your role? How did, he said he needed your help, what specifically did he want you to do?

MARLATT: Help him write the proposal.

BRINSON: And it was funded by, was that OEO money or?

MARLATT: I’m not sure, micro-city government has had some grants from various organizations including some federal grants at various times, some state grants and then, some money from city government.

BRINSON: And you thought that was a good idea?

MARLATT: Yes, he needed my help. I was willing to do it. Let bygones be bygones and go on from here.

BRINSON: Did you continue to stay involved in the program?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: You did. Can you talk about that a little bit?

MARLATT: Well, I’ve been involved since then. I mean, the first early two or three years, seventies, probably I wasn’t so involved, but I’ve been on the board of micro-city government since mid-seventies. The telephone call I had was from micro-city, saying as treasurer, ‘would I please come over and sign some checks today?’

BRINSON: Okay. Tell me about the YWCA during the sixties here. You mentioned that they were integrated. But were any of the leaders or members involved in any of the civil rights activities?

MARLATT: Yes they were, and names are escaping me at the moment. They may come back to me, but yes, several, and they were very supportive.

BRINSON: What about the League of Women Voters?

MARLATT: I wasn’t myself involved with the League at that point. They were, uhmm, supportive, and of course, I think were staying in the area of voter registration, voter rights. I’m not sure about what projects they may have done that related to this except that one of their members was very much involved in trying to get an open housing agency going. And that could have come out of a project from the League of Women Voters. I’m not sure.

BRINSON: Was there a local Human Relations Commission?

MARLATT: All right. Thank you for bringing it up. Out of this effort in the early sixties Bart Peak, as the county judge, was set up, and I’m not sure whether I should say agreed to set up, or whether he had the idea, a county Human Rights Commission. To see if we could use this as the agency that would try to bring people together in their differences and so forth.

BRINSON: Were you involved with that in any way?

MARLATT: No. [Sound of audio going off and coming back on again.] Going back to the Lexington Commission of Religion and Human Rights, Harry Sikes was very much involved with it and is a very well thought of member of the black community having been on what was the Harlem Globetrotters, I think, among others. And then a teacher in the schools, and then later he became City Manager. And I guess eventually the vice-mayor. And he’s still around and you should interview him about some of these things.

BRINSON: Okay. I want to go back to Julia Lewis. Was she the president of CORE? Was she still involved in CORE in `68 when ( ) came in?

MARLATT: I’m not quite sure of the dates, but along about the mid-sixties Julia having done her thing here, went to Michigan, East Lansing, I think and was involved with a community development organization there for several years. And didn’t come back here until probably the early eighties.

BRINSON: Okay.

MARLATT: And since then was involved with the Housing Authority, Public Housing Authority and you could ask some of them about her activity there.

BRINSON: Did you make any close women friends in particular from the membership of CORE while it was active?

MARLATT: Uhmm, I consider Julia a very close friend.

BRINSON: How about with any of the men that were involved? Obviously you stayed in touch with…

MARLATT: Yes, and of course, I felt that I was sort of a mentor and sponsor for Ron Barry having known him as a teenager and watched him grow and develop over years. And since he has continued to be the executive director of micro-city government.

BRINSON: What happened to the Lexington Committee on Religion and Human Rights?

MARLATT: I think it disbanded in the late sixties. [coughs]

BRINSON: Are there any C.O.R.E. records or photos?

MARLATT: There may be some and Ron Barry could help you with those. We had several, quite a bunch of records but there have been several moves and the last I knew nobody seemed to know where the old records were. But he may have some photo files at least.

BRINSON: Okay. I think we are about through for now if that’s okay.

MARLATT: That’s fine.

BRINSON: Is there anything else that you would like to add that we haven’t talked about specifically but sort of came to mind as we…? How would you sum all of this up for yourself in terms of your involvement in the period?

MARLATT: Well, I’m glad I was involved. It gave me a new insight into Lexington and the various components of Lexington community certainly. I hope it made me a better person.

BRINSON: Have you continued to be a Methodist?

MARLATT: No. When I was graduate student at the University of California at Berkley, I became a member of the Unitarian Church there. And then when I came to Lexington I found that there was a Unitarian fellowship here and I joined it. And I’ve been a member since 1957.

BRINSON: Okay. [Audio goes off and back on again] I want to go back and ask you about the reference you made to the American Friends Service Committee. I meant to pick up on that earlier.

MARLATT: When I was a graduate student in Berkley, California during World War II the American Friends Service Committee was very, very active in the area. And it was supportive of the fellows who were conscientious objectors to World War II, and especially those who tried to help those who were either going to prison or were going to Civilian Public Service Camps. And I was involved in helping to entertain some of the young men who came through on their way up to various service camps. We also were involved at that office in northern California: was deeply involved in trying to help the people of Japanese origin who after the orders in January of `42 were evacuated to the so-called relocation centers, concentration camps up in the mountains and deserts of eastern California and western Nevada. And of course several of my co-students at UK, I mean at the University of California, uhmm, were among those who went to those relocation centers. And I, several of my friends and I went over to visit a couple of our Japanese friends when they were being held at Tanfaran Race Track as one of the reception centers before they were shipped off.

BRINSON: Now AFSC, I know had some involvement in some of the other southern states during the civil rights period, Alabama and Mississippi. Were they involved in Kentucky?

MARLATT: I don’t know if they were involved in Kentucky, but actually the activities which involved non-violent direct action were held primarily at the old Japanese YMCA on Gary Street in San Francisco,

which was being conserved by the American Friends Service Committee and used as their headquarters during the war with they understanding that they’d turn it back when people were able to return.

BRINSON: Have you ever heard of Highlander Folk School?

MARLATT: Yes.

BRINSON: Tell me, have you been involved with them?

MARLATT: Actually, I visited there. I was aware of the founder, and one of my longtime friends who went to Bank Street College of Education regaled me with stories of a fieldtrip which the students in Bank Street took by bus into the south and ended up at Highlander Folk School. And what a great time they had and what it was all about, and I have kept up with the kinds of community development they’ve tried to sponsor and groups they’ve given leadership opportunities to over the years. And all their troubles with all the flak in Tennessee about you’re a communist organization and you can’t be here. And they got burned out. And I helped them with their fund, you know, to give them support in case they needed insurance and so on.

BRINSON: Right. They, in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement and before we even defined that, they used to conduct citizenship schools. And I’ve not been able to find anybody who knows that they came into Kentucky at all. They seemed to have gone more to Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi. Did you ever hear that they might have?

MARLATT:I don’t know anything about that.

BRINSON: Of course the citizenship schools were really focused more on voting, getting people to vote and to register to vote. And that was not really a big issue here for the Civil Rights Movement, I take it.

MARLATT: No not really. That wasn’t one of the things you couldn’t do.

BRINSON: Right. So African Americans could vote.

MARLATT: Yeah. You might ask some people who were around a long time and see if they remember the history, but I wasn’t aware of that as a problem.

BRINSON: Okay.

END OF INTERVIEW MARLATT