Oral History Interview with Foster Pettit

BETSY BRINSON: This is an interview with H. Foster Petit at his office in Lexington, Kentucky and the interviewer is Betsy Brinson. Would you . . .

H. FOSTER PETIT: Yes, uh, I thought today was the fifteenth.

BRINSON: Is it the fifteenth? It might well be. It might well be.

PETIT: Well, you know . . . [interruption]

BRINSON: Well, now that we’ve determined that today really is March 15th, that’s

good. Thank you, Mr. Petit, for agreeing to talk with me today. Uh, you probably have heard from Governor Breathitt about the Kentucky Civil Rights Project and what we’re trying to do a little bit; but basically my reason for wanting to talk to you today was because you were there in the sixties in the legislature, and that will be very helpful to us. But I want to go back and, and start a bit earlier, if I may, and just ask you to—first off, tell where and when you were born.

PETIT: Well, I was born in Lexington, August 24, 1930.

BRINSON: Okay, so that makes you, not quite . . .

PETIT: Seventy. That’s right. I’m looking for my first social security check in August. [laughing]

BRINSON: I actually have a family member who has the same birthday you do so . . . Uh, would you tell me a little bit about your growing up, just your family, your education?

PETIT: Yes. Well, my family, uh, the Petits and other members of my family have been in Lexington since 1795, something of that sort. The city was founded in 1779 so we were here pretty early. And like most families, they came from Virginia, through Cumberland Gap. Uh, and, so both my mother and father—though my mother was born in Minnesota, she lived here most of her life. My father did; he was a businessman, liked real estate. And, uh, when my classmates in grammar school would say, “What does your father do?” And I went home one night and I said, “Daddy, what do you do? What do I tell my friends?” He said, “Tell them I collect rent.” [laughter] So he, he collected rent. Anyway, he, uh, he had commercial property and leased out, rented out to various businesses. And I grew up in Lexington, went to, went to schools here and went away to boarding school when I was fourteen.

BRINSON: I want to talk about that in a moment, but do, uh, did you have any siblings?

PETIT: I did. A sister and a brother, both of whom are now deceased.

BRINSON: And are you—where are you in the . . . ?

PETIT: I was the middle child.

BRINSON: The middle child. Okay. And what about your mother?

PETIT: Mother, uh, died about two years ago at ninety-three. And she was really a very charming, rather beautiful woman who did acting here in Lexington, uh, when acting in the theater, the university theater, was one of the principle sources of entertainment without, uh--I guess they had movies at the time but certainly no television. And, uh, she, uh, was a lady with a lot of personality and, uh, enjoyed life, very positive personality.

BRINSON: Tell me her name please.

PETIT: Dunster Foster Petit. D-U-N-S-T-E-R. She was the fourth generation to have that name, Dunster.

BRINSON: And your father’s full . . . ?

PETIT: William Petit, Jr.

BRINSON: So how was it that you went off to Woodbury ( )?

PETIT: Well, my father thought that I needed—I went to Morton Junior High School here; but then when I got to be fourteen my father thought that I needed to get the best education he could afford, and I didn’t usually, uh, disagree with him. It was prudent not to, and, and that was all right with me. So, you know, Virginia, Charlottesville

or . . . is not too far away and that school is out in the country. So I, we, I went there because that’s what he thought I should do. He thought I’d get a better education, and I think he was right.

BRINSON: And Woodbury, uh, was all male at that point.

PETIT: Still is.

BRINSON: Still is. Right.

PETIT: It’s, it’s, uh, thrived with still all boys though they considered it, changing. I have been on the board of that school in the past, Board of Trustees, and I stay very close to it.

BRINSON: How was that for you to leave Kentucky at that point in your life?

PETIT: No difficulty at all. I, I enjoyed traveling then; I enjoy it now and so, uh, I had to difficulty adjusting at all.

BRINSON: And then I believe you went to the University of Virginia as an undergraduate.

PETIT: I did. I did. And then that was interrupted by service time in the United States Air Force as a—you’ve seen that material. Uh, and so I went to the Army Language School and studied Russian, and was then sent to Germany and stayed a year. And then I was sent to Turkey and stayed a year and a half. And basically I was discharged and I went back to college to finish my undergraduate work. And then I, because I was there, I went to the University of Virginia. So it sort of followed. I think if I hadn’t gone to Woodbury, I wouldn’t have gone to the University of Virginia.

BRINSON: Right. At some point when we finish I want to come back and just tell you some of my own experience with some of the same institutions here. But I want to go back though and ask you if you recall, um, a segregated society growing up in Lexington.

PETIT: Oh very much so, yeah. Um, of course, I, as a young boy, didn’t particularly think of it as unusual; it was this condition of the times. But I was aware that—of course, the only minority group we had here were African Americans, a little different now with Hispanic people. But [cleared throat], yeah, I was aware that in train stations there were separate waiting rooms. In Woodland Park where I used to play, there were separate drinking fountains and I was aware of that. And I was also aware that African Americans went to the back of the bus. Now the bus system in Lexington—we had a streetcar system that quit, and was replaced by a bus system in ’39; but the same principles applied at that time in terms of where they sat. And, uh, I’m aware of what they earned as maids in the home; and what, how many days they worked, what days they got off, and some of the terminology that was used then that, you know, you can’t believe took place.

BRINSON: Did you ever have an opportunity to, to play with other black children?

PETIT: Uh, not on a regular basis. Uh, I took a trip—well, the family took a trip to Minnesota, and the son of our nurse, or maid, came along, and we played together. Uh, he was a little older than I, and we remained, of course, good friends ever since. In fact, he ended up being a chauffeur for my mother in later life; and when she’d go to the grocery store, they called her Miss Daisy. [laughing—Brinson]

BRINSON: That was a wonderful film.

PETIT: Yes, it was. And a play here--it played here, played at the Opera House.

BRINSON: It was a real compliment to your mother too.

PETIT: Well, anyway, she loved that. And, uh, so probably I didn’t. Of course, there were no black children in the schools that I attended; but I was aware of Dunbar, which was the black school that did pretty well in athletics, certainly basketball. And I was aware that the only movie theater the blacks could attend, I believe, was the Ben Ali Theater; and they entered from Short Street and went up to the second balcony, the main entrance being on Main Street.

BRINSON: Tell me where that is, or was, on Short Street.

PETIT: Uh, well, uh, right where they’re putting up the new state courthouses . . .

BRINSON: Okay. Thank you.

PETIT: . . . is where it was. Of course, lost—there are photographs can be obtained to show you that theater.

BRINSON: And I’ve seen it mentioned before but I just didn’t know where on Short Street.

PETIT: Right.

BRINSON: I also live on, in the six hundred block of West Short Street.

PETIT: Oh, you do?

BRINSON: So, I’m sort of curious about . . .

PETIT: Well, I know exactly where that is. Six hundred block . . . right, that’s where, uh, where Ernesto Scorsone used to live.

BRINSON: He was in the seven hundred block. He’s now moved to Parker Place.

PETIT: I know. I know. I sold it to him.

BRINSON: Oh, did you really? Okay. A beautiful building. Uh, I’m interested—at the time that you joined the military, what I’m interested in, why you selected Russian? That must have been a pretty interesting experience.

PETIT: Well, again, my father did not want me to be drafted into the infantry. Uh, he served in World War I as an enlisted man. In fact, he ended up driving an ambulance in World War I in France. But the Korean War had just started in September of ’50. My brother joined the Air Force out of college at my father’s insistence; he being a year and a half older, his number came up sooner. After I finished my first semester my third year, it appeared they were not planning to defer any college students so my father said, “You come home. You enlist in the Air Force.” And so I did and, uh--that’s what a lot of college kids were doing at that point, by the way. So we were all sent to Texas, Lackland Air Force Base, which could not handle—they had 80,000 men on the base and the capacity was 25,000; so they had tent cities they put up with no stoves, I might add, and in the dead of winter. Nevertheless I did that, and then on my own I wanted to get some experience in the service that I thought would be challenging and interesting; and there aren’t that many in the service. They were so anxious to get these men out of that Air Force base anywhere, they didn’t give them any psychological tests to determine their capabilities; it was just a logistics thing. I was put on orders to go to Cooks and Bakers School, and I didn’t think that was probably what I needed to do for four years in the Air Force. So I arranged to get myself off of those orders—now, it’s an intricate matter of getting it done. You remember the program MASH? Well, you know how they got things done—well, I got it done ( ), whatever. And I looked around for something I might want to do so I applied for this language training; and they gave me an option of studying Chinese for a year at Syracuse University or studying Russian for six months at the Presidio of Monterey at the Army Language School. So it was pretty much an easy decision, and so I went out there and did study that and . . .

BRINSON: So you really didn’t have any Russian language skills?

PETIT: Oh, I had no background at all. They actually—those who wanted to do that went for a special course in English at Brook Fielding in San Antonio to determine--if you didn’t know English well enough, you probably can’t learn another language as quickly as they wanted you to. But I, uh, I guess, thanks to Woodbury Forest, I was prepared to do that and did it and really did enjoy it.

BRINSON: I wondered if your experience in the military and your travels helped influence your attitudes about race in the United States?

PETIT: Oh, I think so. I think so. But everybody, you know, was evolving in that system. Those who don’t travel, don’t evolve quite as fast. And so, uh . . .

BRINSON: Do you recall anyone in particular that you might have worked with . . . ?

PETIT: No, it just so happened that there were not any African Americans or any other minority—well, there was a, uh, well, he and his family came across the Rio Grande at night and, uh, he was at the Army Language School, uh, Ramon Gonzalez Hernandez. [laughing] Good friend. But by and large two-thirds of the young men who were in my class--and there were fifty-three that started and about thirty-seven that graduated--all had a native language that was not English. All I spoke was Kentucky. [laughter] So I had to work a little harder but I did. And, uh, so I would not say that, uh—but just being, not, not necessarily with minorities but with all kinds of people, uh, is, uh, you know, that’s a . . . matures you.

BRINSON: Right. Okay.

PETIT: Whether they’re—they could be from Brooklyn or somewhere else with very little education, but they outrank you, and you do what you’re told. You just do it. That’s the way it works.

BRINSON: And what happened to you when you finished your service?

PETIT: Uh, I got out three months early so I could go back to college, which was an arrangement they made. And I went back to the University of Virginia and, uh, took twenty-one hours each of two semesters because I wanted to go to law school. And I got my best grades with forty-two semester hours in one year.

BRINSON: What was your major?

PETIT: Pre-law, which sort of is nothing. But I took languages. I took Russian, which was probably not fair; I wanted to get some A’s. I took Spanish and I’d already done several years of French. And so I did get those good grades. And, at that time, the law school would permit you to apply to law school after three years of college if your record was good enough, and if you had a hundred hours in three years, which is a little more than normal. So I met that standard; so I went to law school. And then after my first year in law school, I got a college degree. So I got two degrees.

BRINSON: Is that the way that worked for everyone or did you . . . ?

PETIT: Well, it was in the, the catalog for 1948 and ’49, and they dropped the program thereafter. Because I started in 1948, even though I came back in ’54, uh, they permitted me to utilize that program.

BRINSON: Okay.

PETIT: So I did. But thereafter they wouldn’t let you do that. You had to graduate and then go.

BRINSON: I’m assuming, uh, correct me if I’m wrong, that it would have been an all-white student body at the law school at that point.

PETIT: Uh, well, not only all white, it was [laughing] all male except for three students, three women out of about six hundred.

BRINSON: Okay.

PETIT: Uh, I think that’s correct, yes.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, I have an article here though that you wrote--I think that you sent me--while you were at the law school about the, uh, the school integration in Louisville.

PETIT: Did I send you that?

BRINSON: Well, or your secretary.

PETIT: Oh, I know who did it. Ned Breathitt did it.

BRINSON: Or, no, Governor Breathitt sent it to me.

PETIT: Well, this is the book. I brought that. And, yes, I was ultimately associate editor of this newspaper, which it frankly got many awards through the years.

BRINSON: What’s the name of it?

PETIT: It’s called The Virginia Law Weekly.

BRINSON: Okay.

PETIT: And it just so happened when I was there I thought it would be of some interest to save every issue—it was published every two weeks, sort of—to save every issue of the period of time I was in law school. And so I have flagged here with post-its some actual stories that you might find of interest.

BRINSON: Okay, thank you.

PETIT: It, it, uh, really is sort of the State of Virginia’s review, and some national figures on civil rights law, particularly public accommodations.

BRINSON: Okay. Well, why don’t you save that until we finish recording . . .

PETIT: Yes, will do, will do. But I just wanted you to know—that is the story I wrote, yes.

BRINSON: Well, I’m, I’m interested because this particular article, um, apparently came about when a Dr. Omer Carmichael, who was the superintendent of Louisville public schools, came to speak at the University of Virginia. And you, uh—I’m getting this from the article—and you wrote up about his handling of integration after the Brown decision. Uh, is that your recollection?

PETIT: Yes, I think so. I, I was a reporter on the newspaper and he, uh, he talked about it so I wrote, wrote that up. And it was viewed as, uh, sort of progressive for even a border state to take such a positive stance. Certainly Virginia didn’t do that.

BRINSON: Right.

PETIT: They pulled out all the legal stops to avoid anything of that sort.

BRINSON: Okay. Dr. Carmichael sounds like an unusual superintendent given his own background, which was somewhat impoverished as I understand from the article.

PETIT: All I remember about him is what I wrote in the article so I can rely on that really.

BRINSON: Were you at that point hearing from your family or friends in, uh, Kentucky about what was happening in the state at that period at all?

PETIT: Well, of course, I, yes, I’m sure I was attuned to it. But we also had basically political leaders in the state who, uh, as you know, I’m sure, by now, who supported--maybe they didn’t do so personally but they certainly did as elected officials. Happy Chandler being a governor who said, “That’s the law of the land, and we’re going to do it whether you like it or not.” Which was distinguished from Virginia where I was spending some time. And I remember very well when they sent the tanks into Sturgis, Kentucky, a little town--west Kentucky--to make sure peace was adhered to. Of course, I remember, uh, Governor, uh, of Alabama stood in the schoolhouse door—I’ve forgotten the year. And then I remember Lester Maddox of Memphis who later ran—was that not . . .?

BRINSON: No, Lester Maddox was the Governor of Alabama.

PETIT: Alabama. Alabama. Well, that was later though. I remember his election symbol was an axe handle—I don’t know if you remember that—and he was a restaurant owner; he was not a political person. And he so resented being told that blacks had the right to come in and sit down and eat in his restaurant that he ran them off with an axe handle. And he took that and indeed was elected and—I’ll tell you what--no, he was the Governor of Arkansas, I believe. Was that? Well, I’ll have to recall that—I thought he was . . . of course, no that was--Fallis was Arkansas. You might be right about Alabama but George, uh . . . he’s dead now. What . . . ?

BRINSON: George Wallace.

PETIT: Wallace, yeah. But I’m trying to think of who was governor where Lester Maddox came—I thought it was--I did know his background. You can clear that up.

BRINSON: I’ll have to look that up.

PETIT: But anyway I was aware of all these things and there really were, as you know, a lot of terrible—Selma, Alabama occurred and people being murdered and there were young college kids going down, white kids trying to get people to be registered. It was a terrible time. And that, that really got worse, I suppose, in the sixties. But it was when I was in law school it was beginning to occur, when the reality of the Brown vs. Board of Education, uh, opinion came out.

BRINSON: Uh, it’s always interesting to me how, particularly younger people assume that there was not that much activity in the fifties; it all happened in the sixties with the demonstrations and whatnot. And yet a lot happened in the fifties. And one of the things that I’ve learned about Kentucky is that Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP for years had sort of looked at Kentucky as a possible site that would be much more responsive to integration in education, uh, than many of the other states.

PETIT: I think that’s correct. And I think the elected leadership—of course, Happy was elected, Happy Chandler was elected in fifty-six and so--and then Bert Combs followed him. But Happy’s term was before the sixties, of course, and that’s when he supported the integration that was required by that Supreme Court Decision, long before we had any Federal Act on public accommodations.

BRINSON: So you finished law school in what year?

PETIT: Uh, June of fifty-eight.

BRINSON: Okay. And then what happened for you?

PETIT: Then I came back to Louisville and obtained a job as a clerk, law clerk for a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, on the Sixth Circuit, the Kentucky Judge, Judge Shackleford Miller. And I worked for him for a year in Louisville and then I joined what was called a major firm there, nine lawyers, [laughing—Brinson] and it was, uh, Stites firm which is now, after many mergers and growth, a major firm in Kentucky . But I, I was in practice law there for three years, and then my father became sick and died; and I came home in 1962, and began to practice law here.

BRINSON: Did you practice with a firm here?

PETIT: Yes, I did. They were, you know, a four-man firm, counting me.

BRINSON: Okay. And at what point did you decide to run for the legislature?

PETIT: Well, I—it was an accident, like all the times I have run, most of them, or initially. Uh, the gentleman who had been elected to the legislature from the--the House Seat, R.P. Moloney, Senior was a very strong veteran, very influential person whom I did not know. But I’d been back home about a year, age thirty-three, and he died on Christmas Eve of 1963; and under the rules of Kentucky you fill those seats by an immediate special election. But the parties have to nominate somebody. And I lived in the heart of the city in what was known as the Fifty-third District, and it’s one mile in all directions around, a circle around the Courthouse. And I’ve often said that they looked in the Yellow Pages and found me and determined that I hadn’t been convicted of anything serious, and so they, uh—Foster Ockerman, Senior came and talked to me; he was chairman of the local Democratic Committee.

BRINSON: Tell me his name again.

PETIT: Foster Ockerman. O-C-K-E-R-M-A-N.

BRINSON: Okay.

PETIT: Uh, he has a son who is Foster Ockerman, Junior, but he’s an attorney here and very strong Democrat. And there were two others on the committee whom I know well, or remember; they’re both deceased. But they needed to nominate somebody quickly so they came to me and said, “Would you like to run? The election will be in the second week in January.” Ned Breathitt had been elected the previous November at the ripe age of thirty-eight, and he, uh, took office about the eighth day of December of that year. And so, uh, I think he and I knew each other through our wives and their families, who were from Mayfield, Kentucky. So that’s how he sort of knew who I was. But, of course, Foster Ockerman was one of his principle political lieutenants and was Chief of Staff as it turns out for that first session. But anyway he called me and he was down in New Orleans when the UK basketball team was playing in the Sugar Bowl tournament. And we talked a little bit. I said, “Well, let me think about it.” So I thought about it about a day, conferred a little bit with my law partners and others and said, “Yes, I’ll run.” So I would never have been necessarily in elected office if that--Mr. Moloney hadn’t died unexpectedly. So then I enjoyed it and served for three years, three terms, sorry, including, I think, two special sessions. And then I had four sons and needed to make a living, and so I stepped out of elected office voluntarily. And then about a year later there was a committee formed to find somebody to run for mayor because our city was, uh, not doing well financially. The leadership was very, well, let’s say this, uh, there was a lot of conflict about the leadership; uh, that it was not what we needed. There were embarrassing headlines, accusations, whatever. And so I was on a committee to help find somebody to run for office. And so we would meet at breakfast and say, “Now here’s X, Y and Z. You go see him and see if he’ll run for mayor and tell him we’ll support him.” And we were all assigned, and we went out, and we’d come back and report, “What did he say?” “No, he can’t do it. His job won’t permit him to do it,” or “His wife doesn’t want him to do it,” or something. And so we were running out of time; we probably went to see twenty people. And finally we said, “We have got to file; the deadline’s coming up. So somebody at this table will have to run.” About eight of us. So anyway I’m not sure how I drew the short straw, but I drew it or agreed to it. So I said I would run, so I did. And out of that--the timing of that was quite coincidental about the merging of city and county government. That had been started by others and it was progressing.

BRINSON: Now you were elected in 19 . . . ?

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

START OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

PETIT: . . . serve as mayor in January of seventy-two. And it was during that year that the charter of the new government was written, and campaigns went forward in the summer of seventy-two and the election was in November of seventy-two. And the people supported the Charter of Merger, the plan for consolidation, by a sixty-nine percent vote, which meant that all of the new government’s elected officials would have to be elected in seventy-three to take office in seventy-four. All other elected people in Kentucky and Lexington and the county, their terms were up in seventy-three anyway, except for mine, the mayor. And I could have served, you know, through seventy-six, I guess, but I ran anyway, and thinking I needed to complete the consolidation of the government; and was elected in a very close election. Uh, and, uh, my opponent was one of the men I had asked to run for mayor to start with [laughter], Jim Amato. He said, “No, he didn’t want to.”

BRINSON: Now, you served until what year?

PETIT: I served through December of 1977.

BRINSON: Okay.

PETIT: So really I was elected for two terms of four years each but served six years.

BRINSON: Okay. I want to go back to your years in the legislature, uh, because in 1964 the bill was introduced, uh, to open up public accommodations.

PETIT: Right.

BRINSON: Can you tell me what you recall about that?

PETIT: Well, uh, yeah. I had a number of friends—I’ve forgotten who the sponsor was of that—but, uh, I had a number of people talk to me, uh, some of my black friends did and so forth. And I decided to be for it, and every other member of the delegation from Lexington was for it. You had a number from Louisville for it, but everybody else was politically petrified to even vote on it. The atmosphere was, you know, they were getting a lot of negative comment, uh, all over the state. And so they just wanted to dodge and duck, not an uncommon, uh, activity for the legislature. So when it was sent to committee, the committee would never report it out, just let it lie there. So several of us who were interested in getting a vote on the bill, some kind of a vote, uh, decided to make a motion to take it from committee, which is rather extraordinary thing to do. And therefore it takes a constitutional majority, which in the House is fifty-one votes. We were certain we didn’t have fifty-one votes. At that point, we didn’t care. We wanted to know who’s going to vote for it and who’s going to vote against it, and who was going to abstain. So when the vote came up, there were seventeen votes for it. I saved that electronic, uh, tally and that’s what I was looking for today, and I will find it. And I remember many of them who were for it, you know, uh, not all but--so, that, that was—now at the same time, Martin Luther King came here with his march, and that was—a lot of people there. And so it, uh, was a time of some intensity on both sides. So, nothing really happened on public accommodations. Then a few months later the Federal Act was adopted. In 1966, the very next session, the same bill was introduced. There were sixty-six co-sponsors.

BRINSON: A lot of people had changed their mind.

PETIT: They got brave, they got brave when the Federal Act, because, in fact, it probably made no difference.

BRINSON: Is that what happened, people changed their mind over that period or had there been enough new people elected with different . . . ?

PETIT: No, no. There weren’t enough new people elected. It’s just that they decided that it would not ruin their career. They could go home and say, “The federal act took care of it. We just went along with the federal act; you’re going to have to live with it anyway.” Uh, although I’m not sure that the federal, that the state act probably covered different things than the federal, but they could at least go back and say, ‘What difference does it make? Might as well be for it.”

BRINSON: Okay.

PETIT: That’s my take on it.

BRINSON: Do you remember any of the floor discussions?

PETIT: There was none.

BRINSON: There was none the second time around?

PETIT: Oh, the second time around? Oh, yes, yes, lot of chest beating and saying, you know . . . I think there was a moderate amount of that. Not probably too much but there was some. But, but on the initial vote, to take it from committee, there was no, no discussion.

BRINSON: Right. The second though, uh, what sort of opposition was there?

PETIT: Not much. Oh, there were a few. I guess—I really don’t remember that distinctly. But with sixty-six people, with sixty-six sponsors, I’m not sure what the vote was, but it was pretty high.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, I want to ask you about the names of some other people, if you can tell me what you might know about them. The Reverend Robert Estill . . .

PETIT: Yes.

BRINSON: . . . who was here in Lexington, uh, but became the first chair of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, uh, in 1960, I believe. Did you ever have any opportunity to know and work with him?

PETIT: Well, I grew up with him in Lexington so I knew him before he was “frocked,” so to speak. And, uh, I see him when he comes back to Lexington now pretty often. I guess I did not, I was not here at the time when [cleared throat] he was active in that regard because I was away, living in Louisville perhaps or in law school or in the service. But, uh, [cleared throat] he, he was, he’s a very elegant man, was very much out front.

BRINSON: Okay. Um, and then Joe Graves?

PETIT: Oh, yes. Joe, Joe was always there, uh, leading the fray. He was a city commissioner, and I know you’re going to talk to him tomorrow cause I just left him a little while ago.

BRINSON: [laughing] Okay. He was also in the legislature, was he not?

PETIT: Yes, he was but he was there after the—he was there in the seventies.

BRINSON: Okay.

PETIT: Early seventies. And there wasn’t that much—it wasn’t so novel at that point, the public accommodations. But he was, he was a city commissioner in the late sixties. He was a city commissioner when Martin Luther King was assassinated, and there was a lot of fear of unrest. He’ll tell you about Harry Sykes, how Harry Sykes and he walked the streets that night. He’s a good fellow to walk with because he’s about six-seven, and you ought to talk to Harry.

BRINSON: His name has been suggested to me.

PETIT: Yeah, yeah. He would tell you about—he’s a very reasonable man, remembers well and was a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. There’s a story about him in the paper.

BRINSON: I saw it, actually.

PETIT: Did you see that? Yeah.

BRINSON: Were, were there other individuals in Lexington in the sixties that you recall as playing a leadership role for civil rights in any way?

PETIT: Oh, I think there are some black citizens, yeah. Uh, in fact, I secured a file which, uh, I’ll just let you look at it if you want to. If you want to look at that and ask. Zirl Palmer, uh, is a pharmacist here and he was very active . . .

BRINSON: Z-I-R-L Palmer.

PETIT: Yeah, um huh.

BRINSON: Now he’s a black gentleman?

PETIT: Yes, he is.

BRINSON: And he’s still living?

PETIT: No, I think he’s not. Uh, in fact, there was an explosion in his pharmacy one time. I’m not sure whether that—I think that was a number of years later, but . . .

BRINSON: Uh, there was also a group called the, uh, Lexington Committee on Religious Leadership out of the Seminary that I haven’t been able to really find any records for or really anybody—there’s a woman who was their executive secretary who’s moved to the West Coast. Did you ever . . . ?

PETIT: No. Joe may know. Joe was here during some of those years that I was not. [clears throat]

BRINSON: This is a, a Dr. Bush Hunter.

PETIT: Yeah, he was a black physician and one highly revered. He was the, well, the first black physician in Lexington.

BRINSON: Okay. Well, he wrote you a lot, didn’t he?

PETIT: Yes, he did.

BRINSON: Uh, Mr. Gordon Wilder.

PETIT: Yes, now he’s—I don’t know what that letter says, but my guess is he would not be for it. But maybe I’m wrong, you might read it.

BRINSON: I think you’re right.

PETIT: He was an older fellow. He was telling me not to be for it, I think.

BRINSON: Yes, he’s saying, “We would lose our hat business.” [slight laughing—Petit] “With the hat bars in full public view, I don’t believe your wife would try on hats she had just seen Negro women taking off their greasy hair regardless of how she may feel about integration.” And that’s a quote from the letter that he wrote you asking you to oppose. Uh, Mrs. Pauline Gould, G-O-U-L-D.

PETIT: Gould Gay. Yeah, she’s a black woman. Uh huh, she’s dead now.

BRINSON: This is helpful. If you don’t mind my just . . .

PETIT: Not at all.

BRINSON: Uh, Reverend John Seiler, S-E-I-L-E-R.

PETIT: Don’t know him. I think he might be white.

BRINSON: Dr. Robert Chamberlain.

PETIT: Don’t remember him.

BRINSON: This is Carol K-U-H-N-L-E. Three letters here asking you to support. She lived on South Ashland Avenue. Mr. Ellis Dunning on West Third Street.

PETIT: No. That was probably a ‘90, uh, no, ’66 maybe when the bill came up. I don’t know. Maybe they’re both there.

BRINSON: And the Kentucky Christian Leadership Conference, an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference out of Louisville. She has a number of names, uh, basically urging you to support. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, uh, Eubank Tucker is a name I’ve heard a lot about; he’s deceased.

PETIT: Yes, a lot of folks are deceased.

BRINSON: Okay. Is there anything else you can think of to tell me? I’m curious about one thing, given that you wrote about Dr. Carmichael and his handling of the Louisville school integration. And, uh, of course, there’s been much history since then with the Louisville school system and, most recently, uh, a lawsuit brought by black parents who want their children to go to Central High School. I believe I have this correct. And I’m, I’m just curious sort of how you, how you would assess all of that history, and where you might think we are today?

PETIT: Well, I, I’d like to stick to Lexington. Uh, I’m not an authority on Louisville . . .

BRINSON: Okay.

PETIT: . . . but we merged city and county schools in 1964. Uh, that had certain implications financially as well as socially, you know. This was ten years after Brown vs. School Board opinion, but they merged the systems. The city schools needed a lot of money spent on them, uh, but at that time they were integrated, sort of, you know, at least they tried to. And, of course, then trying to figure out busing was a big issue: how you do it, who wants to do it and so forth. But actually it was my impression that the Fayette County schools did a pretty good job in integrating the schools if you judge that by the lack of public comment or, or public, uh, concern expressed, uh, as distinguished from other places. And I think our school board was interested in pushing ahead, trying to do the best job they could. It’s not easy because obviously housing patterns didn’t coincide with the school districts. And then you’ve got kids in grammar school; you don’t want them to have to travel a long way. And, of course, as it turns out, I think the black children were, did the busing, had to ride the bus by and large. But, of course, since then housing has changed a lot, housing patterns, and that’s the ultimate solution to the school integration is that African Americans can and do live anywhere they want to live. Now, I think there are some economic limitations but not nearly as many as there used to be. And some of them, I think, prefer to live where they grew up. It’s just their choice but over time that’s changed a lot. Enormous differences, yeah.

BRINSON: Is there anything else you’d like to add about the history of race relations in Kentucky?

PETIT: Well, no, I just, I do remember, of course, growing up, what it was like. I look back on it with astonishment. I, uh, at the time didn’t, as a child, didn’t particularly notice anything. That’s just the way it was.

BRINSON: Okay. Thank you.

PETIT: Yes, indeed.

END OF INTERVIEW