Oral History Interview with Grace Lewis, February 4, 1999

BRINSON: Interview with Grace Lewis, done on February 4, 1999 in Louisville, Kentucky at the Carl Braddon Memorial Center. The interviewer is Betsy Brinson. May I call you Grace?

LEWIS: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Grace, could you begin if you would, please, by telling me where and when you were born and a little bit about your family and your growing up and education? Just to sort of set the stage.

LEWIS: Okay. Well, my name is Gracie Lewis and I was born March 8, 1948 in Brownsville, Tennessee to, my mother’s name is Lucille, her name at the time was Lucille Lewis. And my father’s name was George Lewis. And I grew up basically here in Louisville. We left Brownsville maybe when I was around about three or four years old. So I spent the majority of my life in Louisville, Kentucky. And so, and at that time, of course, my mother and father was separated when I was very young. And so, just as everybody, most of the black families back then, I grew up on welfare. I definitely am the product of welfare. And so I understand all the problems like a lot of the welfare mothers are going through, because I’ve been there and done that, you know. [Laughs] And know how hard it is and difficult to manage up off of that one check, even though they try to make it seem like it’s a whole bunch of money. Trust me, it ain’t. I…

BRINSON: Did you have any brothers and sisters?

LEWIS: Yes, I did. I had four brothers and one sister. And right now, then I’ve lost--I lost my oldest brother in 1977. He had, had been in the service, went all over in Vietnam and everything else. Then he came back here and was on a job, a new job, at Anaconda Aluminum, I believe. And he was killed like within two weeks on the job. And at that the time, when he was in service he was a staff sergeant in the Air Force. And then I have a brother, my next brother, his name is Henry Lewis and he was Vietnam veteran and he died March 13, 1994 right on his birthday from brain and lung cancer. And my mother, of course, though she’s gone too. She died of esophageal cancer. And because of my family members who have, really have had, my mother’s mother died when she was young of cancer, and because of the cancer that exists in my family, uhmm, I’m now working as a volunteer with the Kentucky African Americans against cancer. And we are going to be having a cancer symposium tomorrow at Jewish Hospital and it’s called Healthy Tastes. And one of the things what we want to do is to speak a lot about the cancer in the African American community. And Dr. Wayne Tuckson he is an oncologists. He’s spearheading that event. So we are looking very forward to that. Also we include in there the Healthy Taste, which we encourage healthy eating, you know, during the time that people have treatment as well as a preventive measure.

BRINSON: Right. Let me go back, where did you grow up in Louisville?

LEWIS: I grew up in Louisville right off of 13th Street. I grew up right on, uhmm, it was between Muham… well at the time it was between Walnut Street on 13th Street between Walnut and—‘cause, see, I would have been, like, you know, whatever that address was, but anyway it was between Walnut and Cedar Street. The, my church, I belong to Greater St. James A M E Church and I think I united as a member of Greater St. James when I was probably like six or seven. I was very young. Uhmm, but one of the things that was unique about my church is that it was, you know, as the A M E churches always had a peculiar history to it. But one of the things that was especially peculiar to me, when I was young, was the fact that I had a woman pastor and back then. So now, I always encourage women to step up to the plate because surely God can use both male and female.

BRINSON: Tell me about her.

LEWIS: Dr. Martha J. Keys, she was, she preached all the way up until she was eighty-three years old. She had a profound impact on my life. She was a type of person just as many of the black ministers back then, we--the black ministers, black churches always played a key role in terms of development of the black, of the African American community. And with my, with Dr. Martha J. Keys at that time she was a young woman, and her assistant associate pastor was also a woman. Her name was Rosie Means, Rosie L. Means. And I do have those names. I can get that information to you some background information on both of their lives from our church history. But at any rate though, and one of the things that she always had, she always told us that we should always be helping somebody in the community. And so, and at that time she was always talking about how the church must look out to help those who can not help themselves. Always, like today she would have been active in helping the lost, the left out, the least of us. And as a child at eight years old, believe it, those words that she spoke to me when I was eight years old really carried me throughout my life. I was never, ever able to sit on the sidelines and not see, see a person that is hurting and wouldn’t step up to the plate.

And to give you an example of that when I was eight years old and she spoke that, there member of my church, her name is, was, I used to call her Aunt Willie. I didn’t have, my grandmother on my father’s side lived in Indiana. And she was, I never really got, I don’t remember anything about her because my mother and father separated when I was young. I don’t recall any, you know my grandmother. I didn’t have a grandmother. And of course with my mother’s mother dying when she was a child from cancer, I never had a grandmother. So I looked at Aunt Willie as being my grandmother. I always wanted a grandmother and I said, well, look here, you’re going to be my grandmother. And she was blind and her husband was handicapped. And so I just went on, and whether or not she adopted me or not, I adopted her as my grandmother. I just became the person, their child, because they never had any children at all. And they were drawing old age pension at that time and she lived about a block from where I lived. Like she lived on Cedar Street, on 13th and Cedar. And I would come up there after school, every day after school faithfully and ask them what, did they want me to do anything. And we had, just like back in all of the older days; you almost always had a little neighborhood corner grocery store. So I would run up in there and run to the grocery store for them.

When I was like nine, I would say around nine, at least by nine years old, I was cooking, believe it. Aunt Willie, even though she was blind, she always wanted me to learn how to cook. She said that I should be able to help my mother out. So she learned me how to cook really. My mother did not learn me how to cook. I guess because she had so many kids. Now mother was just to me was a very insecure kind of, very insecure and she had all these kids, and I don’t think she adjusted very well with that. So she just felt like if I learned all these skills I could help my mother around the house. So as a Christian woman, first of all, she was definitely a Christian woman. So she always told me also too that I might need these skills to be able to help others. And so she taught me how to cook cornbread from scratch. I’m a, I love to cook. I always feel such a fellowship. And she said cooking was a way that watered the heart. It was a way of bringing about fellowship and you could talk to people. But I always got a strong feeling about cooking as being just a way of being able to develop a fellowship. And I like to use that huge word fellowship because that’s the way I feel when I’m cooking. So all my food is cooked with love, extreme love.

BRINSON: Okay. Tell me about your education. Where did you go to school?

LEWIS: Well, I went to S. C. Taylor Elementary School. I went to, at the time it was Madison Junior High School but you know eventually it became Harvey C. Russell Junior High School. Then I had the first opportunity, I guess I was probably one of the, most, the first ones to sort of, you know when they opened up the schools where black people could go to white schools. I went, my high school was Theodore Ahrens Straight High School. I went to a trade school and my major was business education.

BRINSON: And it was an integrated school?

LEWIS: It was an integrated school. And at that time I guess there were probably only about three percent blacks that went there. And most of the blacks that went there we, pretty much, are still friends today. We stayed in contact with each other. And I loved my teachers there. And the reason why I loved them was because they taught me how to dream, big dreams. With Ahrens I didn’t feel like I had any obstacles. Even though it was just a trade school I never felt like I, because they always taught us to be the best in what we were doing.

BRINSON: Spell that name.

LEWIS: Ahrens, A H R E N S. It’s located at 546 South 1st Street.

BRINSON: Okay. And how was it for you there in an integrated school? Had you had much association with whites before?

LEWIS: I had not had, this was my first opportunity of going to school with white children. My experience there with the children, not so much, well, I guess the children as well as the faculty members, because most of the children had never gone to school either with black children. So with me being amongst the first of the people who actually started going from other neighborhoods, we really had a rough time, because like we’re talking about ninety-seven percent of it being white children. For one thing I felt like I really had to be perfect. I had to be to make straight A’s. I mean, I think I was definitely challenged to represent my people, which is a strange thing because I think that black people always feel that whenever we get in those kinds of settings we always have to be the best, represent the best. Which I think is different from the children of today, because we really represented our people so therefore I wanted to be the best in everything.

And I was in, like I said business education and clerk stenography. I always said I’m going to type. I’m going to definitely take a hundred words a minute. And I know that I achieved a hundred words a minute. When it came down to typing, I said, “I’m going to be the fastest typist”, and I used to type--and I know right today I can type about eighty words a minute, I mean accurately. You know on a word processor, right now, I can still do well. Also too, they encouraged us, but the problems I had with it was, we were always, you know how the kids would torment you. They would call us, you know they would call us out of our names. No question about that because they didn’t, some of us still were definitely called nigger. There was no question about it, ‘cause I was about ready, ‘cause I know one red head I was about ready to take out all of her hair. I mean really cause she definitely called me a nigger and we were, the fight was going to be, oh, we were in the cafeteria. And I got suspended and she didn’t. So I was very upset about that. But I let it go because I wanted, my education was important. And so, but…

BRINSON: So they suspended you for how long?

LEWIS: They suspended me, it was, it probably maybe could have been like a week or so ‘cause they said… It took me a long time to get over her calling me; I had never really been called a nigger, I mean, you know, really just then. And then the teachers were like, they felt like we were imposing on just our being there, you know, they didn’t necessarily want to teach us. And I remember my English teacher right now, she was going, I know that I may not have been perfect person. I may not have used all my verbs and adjectives and all of that correct, but I mean she made sure did. I might as well had my knuckles been beat, because every time I stumbled over anything she called it to my attention

BRINSON: Were all of the teachers white?

LEWIS: Well, all the teachers were white. All the faculty were white and we were…

BRINSON: Were any of them friendly, supportive, helpful?

LEWIS: Well, I think that one of my, one of my business education teachers who was like taught me stenography and typing, they were very helpful because they would try to prepare us for the business world. When we were in trade school back then we were really able to go straight from high school into an office. I mean we were disciplined. That was the one thing that I liked about Ahrens was that it was a trade school, and they basically felt that we were not going to make it to college. So if you wasn’t going to be able to make it to college then you ought to be able to go into an office and be able to still be able to compete with the office there. And so we, when I graduated I definitely went right into an office setting and was able to work cause was able to work.

BRINSON: What, when did you graduate?

LEWIS: I graduated in June of `66.

BRINSON: Sixty-six, okay. Tell me how, you got a job right away and went into an office but was that pretty unusual for women of color at that time?

LEWIS: Well, I didn’t really, I think so. It really was. Now I was not really, now one of the things I want to back up now, now I was able to go into an office. I left Louisville shortly after that time for a short period of time, because at the time I was dating this guy that lived in Pontiac, Michigan and he worked at one of the car plants, one of the auto industries up there. I think it was like Ford Motor Company or something like that. So I left immediately after high school and went up there. And so and I worked, at the time it was the Pontiac Press Newspaper. And I just took ads over the telephone. And so, and Pontiac was basically like a small town like about twenty-five miles outside of Detroit.

BRINSON: Ok. And how long--so that was your first job?

LEWIS: So that was my first job. So that was out of Kentucky. And at that time, right now, it was okay then because I guess though, then up there it was predominantly, you know, well, I guess with Detroit it was pretty much. I don’t know if it had been integrated all along or what. It just felt like it was. I didn’t feel like I was being discriminated at all on the job, you know.

BRINSON: And you came back to Louisville.

LEWIS: And then I came back.

BRINSON: How much later?

LEWIS: Probably about a year and at that time I went on and took up, ‘cause I wanted to continue my education. And then they had, it was something like, like the Computer Education Institute. You know where you go up there and you take up training. So I went back, ‘cause I wanted to take up my refresher courses again. I really wanted to keep my shorthand up, and so I took a lot of the refresher courses then. And then around `69, around `69 with, with President Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society Programs or whatever the era was during that particular period of time, he, they went nationwide. They had a nationwide search cause there were all kinds of task forces.

There were, jobs were really opening up around `69 in Washington because of the new initiatives behind the Johnson administration. And so what they did, they went around the country, number one, in all of the areas in the military; like I went with the Navy. The Navy department was recruiting for clerk stenographers, secretaries and all of that. So when I, my first job with them was after, right after I completed this little, it was a program that I was in. I can’t remember now what program I was in, but it was like a correspondence program. And they went there first to recruit. And they told us when we got through was to take the federal exam, and there would be jobs opening up, and there would be people there that would be recruiting. And so I passed the federal exam and that was really how I got my job. And so it wasn’t long after I had my federal exam that I got a call and I was recruited, and I went right to Washington. That was in September of `69.

BRINSON: Okay. I want to stay with Louisville awhile because the primary focus of this research project is Kentucky.

LEWIS: Okay.

BRINSON: And I know, and it’s also from 1930 till 1970.

LEWIS: Okay.

BRINSON: But I do want to get into some later things with you, too and we may not finish it all today.

LEWIS: Okay, okay.

BRINSON: But, so, when you were growing up, were, you obviously had some pretty important role models here in these women who sort of took you under their wing and taught you things and what not.

LEWIS: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm, I thought so.

BRINSON: Were you aware of discrimination at this point? Were you aware of people who were trying to eliminate discrimination, segregation?

LEWIS: Well within our church Dr. Keys was pretty much involved with what was going on with the community. Now for example now, my church, I know when I was in high school, I would say around the tenth grade. My pastor back then I think was, I don’t know if Dr. Keys was, but she was still involved, still involved with our church. But you know like in the A M E church they constantly change. It’s not like Baptist. You know they’re constantly changing over the pastors, and they send their pastors all over. So you know, you know it depends on where the bishop sends you. So even back then they were still changing pastors. They had started that pattern of changing pastors. So she was no longer my pastor by the time I was like about ten, but she left a heck of a legacy on me. Because for one thing I knew, I had seen a woman in a very authoritative position; she was highly educated, very educated and she was mission minded. And what she basically explained to us that is that we could empower ourselves. We could make a difference in our community. And so she just felt like that if we would help others, ah, she felt that the church could do more. And one of the things, one of the major problems that Kentucky had back then, was one of housing. ‘Cause I know when I grew up it was just to me; I have always been concerned about the issue of housing. And in the black community you had many women that were single heads of households, and the housing was just deplorable. It was like, I mean, every neighborhood it was dilapidated housing. And with the welfare checks, most of these women were on welfare, and they was few women that lived in the West End or whatever side of town. So they were concentrated like right in the neighborhoods where I grew up in downtown Louisville, the Oanda Street, basically the Oanda Street, the Beecher Terrace area.

BRINSON: Was there much public housing?

LEWIS: Yeah, ‘cause see, Beecher Terrace was public housing. But Beecher Terrace was also too; it was very sophisticated at Beecher Terrace. I think they were one area of town that I felt was really very well organized because they had like a community center there. And most people really were trying to get in it. In fact Beecher Terrace was almost like a townhouse. You would almost think they were townhouses when they were just a public place. You know it was just amazing. But it was well up kept, the upkeep and the management was very, very well. Because I remember they used to have what was called Baxter, and Baxter was their community center, and it would be like a place that the young people could come from all over Kentucky. And they would come there on Fridays and they would have people that would be there. There would be chaperones and we had all kind of parties there. I mean just, you know, where children could go out and they could not worry about getting pregnant. There was no booze nothing like that, and I remember them playing really a key role.

Where our church right now, the first major project that our church got into was to address the issue of housing. And Reverend Leo Lesser and I don’t know if you remember the Reverend Leo Lesser but he was one of my pastors that spearheaded that project. And he was, and you know what his legacy was and right now. So then after Reverend Leo Lesser got involved with the housing, Reverend Henry M. Green, Sr. took up where, you know, he became the next pastor of Greater St. James. And he continued the struggle really for fair housing and decent housing for those mothers that were there. And he was really concerned about the housing issue because, you know you could only, because you know we were segregated back then. You know some areas that you really couldn’t go in. But most of the areas right about now, so that was one of the issues.

So what they did was right when Lyndon B. Johnson began to open up the Great Society Programs they got together; they did form a corporation back then, and Rev. Henry M. Green as well as my best friend today, her name is Vernell Conley. And Vernell Conley is well known in the city. And then it was several other people. Of course, now, Vernell could tell you more or less really about how they began to get started. But they ended up getting over a million dollars grant and so as a consequence they were able to get a hundred and twenty-five units right over here on Jefferson Street. You know the complex from 9th, whatever, that was my church’s project and most of my church members, my former church members that was their answer to the housing problem. And I thought that was really one of the most fantastic things that I have seen really a black minister to achieve back then. But it was also to the way the African American Episcopal Church was about. I mean they were movers and shakers back in them days. And that’s one reason why I was saying right now when my pastors, these were some of the visions that she had even when I was a child was for us doing things like this.

And so I just sort of, and I had always wanted to be a minister. I loved to sing in the choir, and one of my favorite songs and in fact ,I think I probably joined church on Amazing Grace. Because I love that song, I mean it has been my testimony. It has been my way of life. I have always tried to live up to that song.

BRINSON: And it helps that it has your name in it.

LEWIS: And helps keep me focused. Plus it has got my name in it. And because she was always really interested in helping those, the least of us and that’s just the way that she was in terms of her whole philosophy of ministry.

BRINSON: Tell me about your friend Vernell Conley.

LEWIS: Vernell Conley, she was over the youth department. Now what she would do with all the young people back then, and see one of the things about the African American community back then you had a lot of movers and shakers back then. But they were people, right now, that was concerned about you. Now like today right now that is probably the major reason why a lot of the young people have, they don’t have the kind of leadership and the people who will reach back and reach back, and go into the community. And Vernell right now whatever community she was in, now she was raised up off of here. She lived on Virginia Avenue right around 22nd and Virginia Avenue. That’s where she was brought up. But she would go into communities--when you were with her, when she would unload her car on Sunday there had to be twenty people in there. I don’t know where she picked all them children up. But she would stop by in the community and she’d see a child that wasn’t going to church, she’d load them all up in there. And so, and so, I don’t know that’s basically where I met her from. I met her from my church. And I remember this woman who packed up all these children in there. And right then and there she became my kind of a person. I needed to hang out with her.

So as a young person I started hanging out with her. And she was always instrumental in helping people get their assistance and everything. And so, Rev. Green and he, she was like really his right arm. And in fact really, Rev. Green really was just drawing a paycheck as far as I’m concerned. He had the ideas. You know how people are visionaries. But you know you have got to have a person right now who can dream, but also people who can make those dreams come true. Well Vernell was truly that person. She really knew business, and whatever he dreamed she was able to put some feet to it. And she was, she only had a high school education, but by George, by the time she got through whatever she was typing up, it was perfect. If she typed up a proposal, believe it, she knew it. And she stayed in contact with the important people. She had the kind of way that she could go walking in the mayor’s office. And the mayors respected her cause they’ve gotten, ‘cause the Henry M. Green ( ) most of those awards they initially got was because of Vernell. I can assure you it was because of Vernell. And they always say, there is always a woman behind the scene. There is no question about it. She was the woman that was always behind the scene even though Rev. Henry M. Green, because he was the director and also because he was the minister and founder of it, uhmm, but she was really the true mover and shaker that moved things along.

BRINSON: Do you have any other women friends like her?

LEWIS: Yes, many, many. I have had many, many women friends like that. But with her she just really is a true legacy. She really is because once she organized that place over there, and she had a hundred and twenty-five units; she organized the senior citizens over there. She helped them with their assistance and everything. She would snatch one of the associate ministers out of the A M E Church and put them in control of trying to get their assistance started, like if they needed medical care, or if they needed to check on their welfare checks, or get to and from the doctor. She would say here is my van, here’s my car. And I mean they were using her car, her van or whatever it was to take people to and from the doctor. Come Thanksgiving and whatever she had, we had like a room, or they had like a you know, a hospitality house over there. Also she had a daycare center on the premises over there. And she managed that place like it was just her own home. So those people, they lived good. The place now, it just turns my stomach now to go past there. Because she managed that place over there. ‘Cause my mother was one of the persons, right now, that eventually lived over there. And died there really, she lived there, died over there at the Henry M. Green apartments. Many of the people, the residents that were there, she trained them how, they were young girls they didn’t know, maybe they had gotten pregnant early on in life. She got them a place to stay. She taught them how to cook, how to keep house, how to manage a budget. Hey, she really was just a profound person, right.

BRINSON: Can we go back to the fifties and the sixties again here in Louisville? I know you were young during part of this. Uhmm, do you remember any of the demonstrations or the sit-ins?

LEWIS: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: What can you tell me about what you remember?

LEWIS: What I remember is with the A M E churches …

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE

BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE

BRINSON: Church as an organization.

LEWIS: Well, the A M E Church has, really because they believe that they have to--in order for them to do what they need to do to improve the lots of the African American community--that they had to have legislation to do it. Because you just couldn’t live in certain areas of Louisville. Uhmm, so, they felt that in order for us to get what we are due, to become, really to achieve our rights as citizens, well, they had to make an impact on legislature. And so the church was one of the, was one of the avenues to organize and reach the masses. Now one of the, I think one of the greatest failures of today is, which really causes, it hurts me today, that most of the churches have not really involved their membership. Even though they are growing and they’re able to come up with community programs, they have gotten away from the real struggle, the way the struggle was in the sixties. Because you have to really, some of the struggle you have got to get out there and apply direct action. A program here, a program there is not going to get it, not going to cut it.

Because you have, if you’ve got let’s say for example right now, if a person, cause we get a lot of calls here at the Alliance; for example, people who are having job problems. I mean, and it goes beyond the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, a lot of times they’ll get turned down as saying we can’t process this. Or they get discouraged. They don’t know how to go and they’ll call the Alliance. The Alliance right now, Alice can’t even do her work for the calls that we get in from the community. They know that we are here and they will call on us even if it comes down to a person right now whose son or daughter right now is incarcerated; they’ll call here. Now we’re, you know, we’re a political group. But now we’ve had to now set up an ex-offenders’ uh, you know, rights group here. And we’ve had to really, and a prison committee here. We’ve had to do that, where as in the past the church would be doing that.

The African American Episcopal Church they were involved in that. What was going on, like I said if a person right there in their church if their son or daughter was incarcerated they could go to the pastor. The pastor in some kind of way could go down there and impact on the penal system. And it would make a difference. It would make a difference when you walked in a courtroom and your pastor was sitting there; your members of your congregation was sitting there when you go up before that judge. Now you go in there and you are shaking like a leaf on a tree because you are going in there by yourself. And, and, ah, you know our institutions were faith based institutions. They would encourage us to not just let people walk all over top of us. You know God gave us the same rights, the same opportunities and we’re going to get them. And so therefore, so when we registered people to vote or if they came along with… like I say for example, right now, we have to almost like beg, we almost like have to have a special recruitment drive to get the pastors go out and encourage every member of their church to register to vote and show up at the polls.

Back in the fifties and sixties you didn’t have to do that. They knew that once we were given the right to vote they going to exercise it. That’s the reason why you see the senior citizens out there on Election Day. I don’t care, rain, snow, sleet or rain, them senior citizens, those senior citizens will jump up to the plate. And that’s because they knew the time when they didn’t have the right to vote, so they take pride in that right to vote. You can’t, I don’t care black or white, but particularly black folks, you will see them senior citizens they will be out there voting. Now today’s young people they don’t see the need to have, they don’t need to have to be no kind of involved.

BRINSON: Do you recall whether your church was involved in the group of people that went to Frankfort?

LEWIS: Oh, I’m sure. Yeah because Rev. Leo Lesser was one of the persons I know that definitely went. He definitely went. And I know Vernell Conley would have been one of the persons that definitely would have went as well as Rev. Green. Because, you know, with all of them right now, they were all activist at that time. They were really considered the movers and shakers in the black community. And the A M E Church was way out there in front, but most all of your churches--was really—if you were to go--if you were to go and pull the church history of our church, they could actually have, I’m sure that Vernell Conley has pictures of that. But also so, too, right now, if I were to go back and pull, I know I’ve got newspapers I’m sure that can identify some of the struggles that were held back then. And also too, I want to pause right now, you want to maybe like go off record. [Sound of audio going off.] Two of the major issues here that caused the churches to really get involved with the struggle during the sixties was really the, even though once we got our rights of course, you know, I mean that’s only part of the thing. I mean you still, you now need to have rights to access to jobs, and open up jobs really. And because I know with me right now that was one of the reasons why I left and went to, went to Pontiac. And that’s also one of the reasons why I left and went to D.C. because even though we had gained our rights and everything it still was not open, open to blacks. Like I said to even be in an office like I was sitting here talking about going into an office here, that was almost literally unheard of. But there were blacks that were able to get jobs in the office but they were like your lighter brown skinned black people; you know that’s when the color thing came in there.

BRINSON: And how would you describe your skin?

LEWIS: Chocolate. So I probably wouldn’t have, now Vernell, Vernell is just the opposite. Now she’s a light brown-skinned woman, she’s had many doors just open, open to her. Well because she looks almost like she is white. And I can tell you the difference, now you see what I’m saying the difference in that. So she was able to go in the mayor’s office and almost get almost anything funded.

BRINSON: Okay. Did you ever participate in any of the sit-ins or the demonstrations?

LEWIS: Well, see, most of the sit-ins and demonstrations happened when I was, it was around `64, and at that time I was not really politically active like in `64. I really was not. And in `68, ah, I had gotten active but I still was not like I said openly, like I say, in terms of participating in the sit-ins at that particular point. And I really, I just really was not, because at that time here I was more or less concentrating on just really trying to make a living really, just basically trying to make a living. And I was just not really that politically aware of what was really going on. I just knew that my pastor, for example, for one, Vernell Conley and people like that, they were out there. And see they were like I said, even when they, when they would be involved like in the sit-ins, they would come back and do the mundane work of actually following through on the legislation or making sure our community gets the block grants that were coming down. And you know, like with the, like they were members of the NAACP. They believed in being staunch members of the NAACP, the Urban League and where they can be able to make a difference. And that was how they challenged theirs rather than so much the sit-ins. Even though they had the sit-ins but then they were able to carry out their will through these organizations here. So you won’t really have like a lot of, uhmm, within the, and that’s just my viewpoint of it. Most of the people who were involved then, they were either involved through the work of the NAACP, or they furthered their work through the churches. And most of the time like I sort of said if it came down to signatures that they need to have or a boycott of something, it was organized first in the church and then it hit the community.

BRINSON: Do you remember any of the boycotts specifically?

LEWIS: Well, I know in terms of the housing issue, right now, I know specifically that I know that Rev. Leo Lesser, that was one of them. He was one of the major persons that got Greater St. James out there and in the streets, because he was just, you know, he was just that kind of a person. I mean he was really just almost like a Jessie Jackson.

BRINSON: Right. But do you recall a boycott against any specific company, or against the city, or the newspaper for any sort of specific reason?

LEWIS: Specific reason? I don’t specifically don’t remember, no.

BRINSON: Did you ever hear of Martin Luther King coming to town?

LEWIS: Yes, yes I did. I heard of him coming to town. But at that time, uhmm, yeah, I heard that he was coming to town but I wasn’t able to go, really to go to see him.

BRINSON: Do you remember the riots here in the late sixties? Can you tell me about that?

LEWIS: Now, I can’t tell you a whole lot about the riots because I think that when the riots happened it was what about `60?

BRINSON: Sixty-seven, sixty-eight.

LEWIS: Sixty-eight. Well, that was the time that I just caught, see, I really just caught basically the tail end of it. Because that’s when I was in transition from living in Pontiac, Michigan and moving back to Kentucky. So when I came in the riots had been either, you know, well I noticed that there was a riot, but I was just coming like in, like the tail end of it; whereas like you know, we had to rebuild everything. I wasn’t here actually when the riots started. I was living away. I was living in Michigan, Pontiac, Michigan at the time. And so when I came in basically during the time when they had to repair everything that was basically torn back; I came back home about that time. So I missed out on all of the what happened and all of that. I was not living in Louisville at the time. I was living in Pontiac. But I did come back, and I really was a part of the rebuilding of Kentucky, and the trying to just undo the damage that was done.

BRINSON: Why did you come back to Louisville? What happened to you there?

LEWIS: Well, I just, you know when I came back to Louisville, oh, one thing, I had gotten pregnant. [Laughing] I had gotten pregnant, and I was just upset. I just didn’t know how to make it. I was just very upset because I had gotten pregnant, and then I found, then it was even worse because the doctor told me I was going to have twins. It was like, oh, my God, twins. You know, and then I wasn’t married and since I was, I felt very embarrassed about that. I really should have probably stayed where I was, but my church it was just like, you know, I felt like I had let my church down, you know, and I was really embarrassed when I came back. I don’t even know why I came back because, because when we came up, you had to be married. You know, they drummed that marriage thing into you, you know, if you got pregnant you’re going to marry whoever you, you know.

BRINSON: Did you have twins?

LEWIS: Well, you know, I had a miscarriage. I had a miscarriage when I was like four and a half months. And they would have been about, yeah, right on time about now.

BRINSON: And so that …

LEWIS: That’s what brought me back.

BRINSON: Okay. And so that in a way sort of freed you to think about moving on to the Washington D.C., which would happen not too long after that, right?

LEWIS: Right, uh-hmm, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: What was that like moving to Washington D.C.? How did your family feel about you going?

LEWIS: My mother and them was excited probably because most of the blacks back here, if you were getting a job in Washington D.C., I don’t care if you made … [pause, then she speaks to someone else and audio goes off].

BRINSON: So we were talking about you moving to Washington and how your mother felt.

LEWIS: Uh-hmm, she was, she was very excited about it. And that would give them, and you know she knew that I was very much concerned about not being able, cause I was having a hard time getting a job here in an office. My, my skills was with doing office work, and I was putting applications in and applications in, and I knew that I was qualified for the jobs. It was definitely not, hey, at that time I had just came, I had gone through refresher school. I mean I had made, I think I, I graduated from taking up my refresher courses and shorthand and I was doing like about a hundred words a minute and typing eighty words a minute. And I felt that with my skills I had gained from working on the newspaper taking those ads over the phone. I have developed a discipline about going to and from work. And I felt that I could handle work, and I was just very discouraged because I had put in all these applications and I couldn’t get a job. So when the job came available my mother was very happy because she knew that it would make me happy. And so she was very, very excited about it.

BRINSON: And what was the job?

LEWIS: I went, I worked with the Department of Navy as a clerk stenographer. And I worked for the Navy Department and it was just wonderful. I mean I think that was one of the best moves I’ve ever made really, because I love Washington to this date. I really do. I just love it. In fact when I was there, I went back to my old stomping grounds when I first moved to D.C., and I stayed right up in McLeans Gardens and now it’s called the Village or something. But it’s now converted off into townhouses, beautiful townhouses. And I know that there is no way, shape, form or fashion that I could live there today. But at that time where most of the Navy people they had sort of rented out portions out at McLeans Gardens so that there would be housing available for people who came to D.C., and that’s where I stayed.

BRINSON: McLeans Gardens?

LEWIS: McLeans Gardens, it’s M C L E A N S Gardens and they had a portion there where they were, had made some kind of a grant, some kind of a thing where they were given a grant. And so people who that they were bringing in there was particularly, because like a lot of that time when they were getting these clerk stenographers, naturally they were women. And so they didn’t want to bring them into D.C. where housing, because even up there right now it’s hard. It’s a big problem there. And so what they did was they housed us at McLeans Gardens. And McLeans Gardens had like a dorm-like facility but they also had apartments that were surrounded. Now the ones, the apartments now are townhouses. And but it’s in a wealthy area of town. It really is a very, it’s a rich part of town.

BRINSON: And did you live there most of time you were in D.C.?

LEWIS: Oh, yes, I lived, well, no, I lived there probably, McLeans Gardens probably about a year. And I saved my money, and I moved down from there, I moved to, it was a beautiful apartment, building called 1800 R Street, and no, the Imperial House. I moved from there to the Imperial House. And that was right at 18th and Q. Lived right on the corner of 18th and Q, and right now that apartment complex is still there and it’s still lovely. It’s amazing how all of those years whoever management, the management has never deteriorated ‘cause it’s still standing nice and it’s well managed today.

BRINSON: Tell me how you got involved with Angela Davis.

LEWIS: Well how I got involved with Angela was that during this time when Angela was first, was really, it was a news flash that came on. And they talked about this black woman like being on the run. You know she was accused of kidnapping, murder and all that. And automatically, you know, like people would just stop and watch the news, I mean this black woman. So then they had captured this black woman here, and so, and when they did, when they showed her picture on there, I just got--it was like I immediately could relate to everything. I just felt like I just had, you know, I mean, I guess that really because I’ve always said that any time that there is anybody that is out there where I felt that there was, they were being, I don’t know it was just something about Angela personally that attracted me. But it was also too, because of the way that they talked about all of the charges. So I just really felt that she was definitely not going to be given a fair trial. One thing they had on there was that she was a communist. And you know at that time there was like the red scare. You know most people didn’t understand communism and I know I surely didn’t. And for the fact that’s all then I know she’s gone, you know. So I mean just that alone really caused me really to think that she was not going to get a fair trial in America, because America definitely did not believe in communism. And at that time I was working for the Welfare Reform Task Force and it was amazing I was working on that task force. They had the welfare reform. That shows you how long they’ve tried to scrap this program. That and that was in `70, `71, when I was working for and at that time it was Health, Education and Welfare.

BRINSON: That was your paid work at that time?

LEWIS: My paid work at that time.

BRINSON: So you moved from the Navy?

LEWIS: From the Navy Department to Health, Education and Welfare. And so, and then they had what they called the Welfare Reform Task Force. That was like, well it was still up under the umbrella of Health, Education and Welfare, but this particular task force was going to focus on welfare reform. And so at that time I ended up being a word processor back then. And so I worked there as a word processor. And I mean so all on my job I kept talking about Angela Davis and Angela Davis and Angela Davis. So somehow or the other, somebody, one of my co-workers, and till this day I don’t know who it was, but till this day one of my co-workers: I was called up on the carpet about the middle of the day, the FBI called me into the office, and you know flashed out their badge, and said, “We’re the FBI and…” You know how they have those little black attaché cases and they wanted to know why it was, they wanted to, they actually sort of said, “well, you know, when you came to work for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and also for the government you took an oath of office that you would defend and protect the constitution of the United States.” You know the whole thing, why are you supporting Angela Davis? And that seemed so logical because after all, I mean that is what I took my oath for. And I just felt like, I said, “Well, look, I understand that I took this oath.” And I said, “But what I am more or less concerned about really is whether or not that she will be able to get a fair trial in America. And I do believe in her having a fair trial. And if I’m wrong, I’m just wrong, but I have definitely got to take a stand. So you can put down there that here I stand, ‘cause I ain’t changing. I’m not giving up my job. And I will defend her until she is free.”

BRINSON: And did they go away?

LEWIS: Yeah, no, they didn’t go away. What they did was… No they did not go away. What I did not know at that time and if you recall, now this was where President Nixon and President Clinton differs. And also is the reason why I took a stand and went to Washington D.C., delivered all of my one hundred letters, is because I was there and worked up under the Nixon administration during this time. You, Nixon was in the White House and what he did was just like, what he did, which it came out during Watergate was how he infiltrated. And for anybody who spoke out for black liberation, or anybody who took a stand, like I said I was fighting for Angela at that time I ended up, my FBI file started to grow. And I was considered a security threat to the United States of America.

BRINSON: Did you ever ask to see your FBI file?

LEWIS: Oh, oh, I got it. Yes I got it. But see I didn’t know, I did not know that they had did this at that particular point until 1986. And around `86 what had happened there was a case involving Julius Hobson. It was Hobson versus Wilson up in Washington D.C. And they were suing the FBI for invasion of their privacy, for you know, they felt, and it was really basically, it was about eight or nine of them and that had joined in on the law suit. And it was because of that it came out then that the United States, the FBI really had all these files on people who were activist, political activists and how they, they had this count and tell program. And I was just amazed, and it just frightened me to no end to think about this. And, you know, I say, well this is something. And in fact most of the people that filed a case I knew them personally. I mean I knew Julius Hobson. Julius Hobson, he was with the city council of D.C. and, but he had passed. I think he had died by the time the lawsuit was actually actualized. So Tina Hobson, you know who was his wife, she continued the lawsuit on but he had died in the meantime.

BRINSON: When did you first meet Angela Davis?

LEWIS: When I first met her it was when she was released. When she was released it was around `73, and this was a time in which they were calling it the people’s victory. We had, I met her, literally, one of the things that I had, let me backtrack here. I met her like when she was released from prison here. This is, uhmm, this is like, we had organized, the D.C. Committee to free Angela Davis was organized like around `70, around July of `71. And at that time, we had, we just like practically all across the country they had started to organize defense groups, and that was from east, west, north and south. And so we were just one of them that organized. And at that time, so what I did was, what I did was when I found out that they were going to organize, we had a press conference. And we announced ourselves about who were really to the community and we came out, and I do have the documents really which we originally came out. And we, uhmm, announced ourselves to the community saying that we were, if you want to I can just stop, you can just stop recording.

BRINSON: No, I want to continue to tape but I will look at that when we finish.

LEWIS: Okay. And that was how I met Angela Davis was it was like after; see, what she did was like after she was freed, she was freed like in `72, and she had--then there was a huge fundraiser at Madison Square Garden. Yes. And this was in…

BRINSON: And that was to raise money for her?

LEWIS: Yeah, that was June 29, an evening, yeah, June the 29th, because I think she was releases probably like around March or April or whatever. I think around April of `72, and then around the 29th, this was the Evening with Angela, here. And this was when she went to, and this was a major--if I hadn’t met her on that night. I went to, I have pictures of me with Angela here, and we were in like a hotel room earlier and that was the first opportunity. And I do have a photograph of all of us standing there in the room with her. And she went on, and this night right here it was well attended. However large the, uhmm, the Madison Square Gardens was, there was not any seating room at all. Those people that came, as you know it, you know how huge that place is. There wasn’t a seat in there that was left unfilled. And it was people that she really was… and this was just probably the first of many tours that she made because she practically, not only in terms of the United States. This was a major thank you fundraiser. It was also a fundraiser to continue the work on, because once the proceeds from this event went into paying, to help pay off her legal defense, number one. And whatever was left over from that, it was number one, to help establish and set up an ongoing movement to free others who were also, number one, incarcerated and among which was the Wimbledon Ten and was the Joanne Little defense movement, and it was other movement’s like that. But namely I think our next biggest thing was the Wimbledon Ten. Okay that was the next thing that we jumped off in to.

BRINSON: Were you, do you know, was there a free Angela Davis group in Kentucky during the time that you were working in Washington?

LEWIS: Oh, yes, oh, yes, there was, there was.

BRINSON: What can you tell me about it?

LEWIS: Now the Free Angela Davis Committee in Kentucky right now, I would not be the person that you need to talk to about that here. Now the person that you probably would need to talk with about that here would be Mattie Jones or either Mattie Mathis or Ann Braydon. In particular Ann could be able to tell you more since she’s right here about the Angela Davis Defense Committee cause she’s right here you could probably talk with her. ‘Cause I was not here at that time, I was in D.C. organization. I ended up being the secretary of the D.C. Committee to free Angela Davis. And that’s one reason why I still have all of this here because, you know, like as a secretary, we keep all of our notes.

BRINSON: Right, right, okay. I want to jump ahead and I know you were involved in a lot of things when you were in Washington. But I want to get you back to Kentucky. I believe you told me that you came back to Kentucky…

LEWIS: In `87, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: In `87 because your mother was ill.

LEWIS: My sister.

BRINSON: Your sister.

LEWIS: Because my mother had passed in `84.

BRINSON: Okay. So tell me about that. You came back to help your sister and stayed. And what kind of things have you been involved in politically, social justice kinds of activities since then?

LEWIS: Uhmm, when I first came back let me see. We, I have to go and sort of like refresh my memory here.

BRINSON: The Kentucky Alliance, I expect.

LEWIS: Well, when I first came back, see I have a friend of mine, her name is Dr. Gwendolyn Patton. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama.

BRINSON: Patton? P A T T O N?

LEWIS: Uh-hmm, P A T T O N. And she had been involved throughout the movement really for civil rights as far back as, you know, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. back in the Birmingham, Selma to Montgomery. And in fact though, right now, she was one of the consultants on the, you know, like when they were getting ready to actually lay out this whole area, you know in terms of the historical site in terms of the Selma to Montgomery March into Montgomery. She was one of the consultants that worked on that program by the way. And, but she had been very active and I met her in Washington. And so she was around the Angela Davis case because that’s how I met Gwen. And so Gwen and I became friends and we continued our friendship even after she left. And she left D.C. and went to New York and then she went back to Montgomery. So when I came down here the first person she told me to get in contact with was Ann Braydon. And she said Gracie when you get your little bones back to Kentucky you stay involved and the person to get in contact with is Ann Braydon. And she said because they are doing the state, the Kentucky Alliance is doing pretty much the same thing that the D.C. Alliance was doing and they have continued their struggle on here. And so I came back here and just got right involved with the work that they were doing. I think at that time it was still active around the, uhmm, uhmm …

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE

BEGIN SIDE ONE TAPE TWO

BRINSON: … to tell me about your involvement with Jessie Jackson.

LEWIS: Oh, yeah, and that was through the Kentucky Rainbow Coalition. During the Kentucky Rainbow Coalition we sort of like tried to, you know, to really get the Kentucky community organized around voter registration. We held forums and this was through the Kentucky Rainbow Coalition. We held forums on discussing, you know, the issues and platforms that Jessie Jackson believed in. And at that time, right now, if you recall, they had pretty much, healthcare has always been a major initiative. And that was I guess one of the major issues was trying to get healthcare for everybody. That was one of the primary issues that we got ourselves right. Yes, we did. And we went around the country around the issue of healthcare for everybody. Uhmm, also too then it’s the issue really of housing. We had, really, even today right now that’s a major issue in Louisville about housing. Because like if you recall now, the Village West Apartments up there, and they were just literally deplorable when I came back through there. I would, ‘cause I was going then, I was attending Greater Salem Baptist Church and my just walking through there upset me because it was just--I mean the housing was just deplorable. I mean you walk through there and you could just practically see through some of the people’s houses. And it was just dirty. It was filthy. It was ran down, dilapidated housing and it was drug-infested. You know, and I, I was just screaming at the community over there. And one of the things I definitely did was my church, right now, when I was going to Greater Salem, was to try to get them involved with prison fellowship project Angel Tree. And not just during the Christmas.

BRINSON: Angel Tree?

LEWIS: Angel Tree. And because we ran across, came across a lot of the residents there, you know they had inmates, they had families that were incarcerated. And, ah, really literally children left and to be taken care of by their grandmothers. And you know how much of a problem that creates.

BRINSON: So both parents.

LEWIS: Both parents, right, and you could, and I found that was definitely the case in Village West. But most, but the thing that I was most concerned about was the condition of the housing there. ‘Cause you could go over there and I mean the doors were just filthy dirty and some of the windows even though it was sliding glass windows and stuff, well, you could just, literally some of the glass was out of it. It was just deplorable there. And so one of the things that we wanted to do was to try to organize that community, the Village West Community. And try to come up with, really just aldermen and people who number one was going to come up out of the, you know, get busy in terms of trying to make housing improvements over there. And also, too, you know, you had children there who were just walking around half barefooted. You know they were dirty and dingy looking, and so we tried to get the churches involved in it. And so, and but the biggest struggle really was the issue of prison rights. We also had issues around prison rights here. ‘Cause you know you’ve got just a whole hosts of issues, of people trying to get to and from to see their loved ones: a lot of them has been railroaded off to prison because they didn’t have, you know, adequate representation. Like I said, right now, even the Alliance right now, we get calls like that all the time. And so, around, and then too it was a whole question, well, the Wimbledon Ten Case, you know, at that time, right now, the Wimbledon Ten Case that was still going on. That was a ten-year battle. So even down here they were still working around that. And also, too, then it was a question then of also trying to, you know, like if the presidential elections came about we really wanted to spend a tremendous amount of time organizing the community around the issues, making sure that we had full employment. Full employment was and still is a big initiative. And in the Kentucky Alliance right now that’s one of the things that we struggle for all the time is full employment, healthcare, affordable healthcare for all.

BRINSON: You mentioned, talking about health a little bit, you mentioned to me some of your family and the history of cancer and what not. How’s your health?

LEWIS: You know, I have had, uhmm, I had a tumor like on my windpipe in `89 and I had to, and during that time, like I said, I was unemployed at that time in `89. And I mean I was without insurance and believe you me I know what kind of problem that you can run into.

BRINSON: You were back here?

LEWIS: And I was here, I was here. In fact, my operation, my surgery had to be put on the back burner because of insurance problems in terms of how it was going to be paid for. And I’m walking around here half sick, couldn’t even catch my breath or anything while they were trying to struggle in terms, trying to, cause I didn’t have no insurance at all. And so, it was really literally put on the back burner until the issue was resolved. And only because of Dr. Richard Mondell was, he began to say, ‘look here, I want her to be, I don’t care how ya’ll do it. But I want her to be able to, you ought to take care of this.’ Because even though my tumor was benign, it was causing me to be severely short of breath. I couldn’t hardly walk or do anything. I was almost like a person that had emphysema when I had that tumor there because it had grown to be so large. And even then I got a massive scar after that and I couldn’t even get because I didn’t have insurance to do cosmetic surgery after that because it left a terrible scar. But at any rate though I wasn’t able to get anything done, any monies available really at that time because I didn’t have that type of insurance that would take care of, you know, getting rid of that. So, that was, those were some of the major issues that we’ve been involved with. Also environmental racism, as you know, that’s another issue that I’ve been very much more or less concerned with is because, you know, like a lot of cancer is environmentally linked. It really is. It depends on what area of the town that you’re in with all this toxic waste. All of this and it just so happens to end up in the black community. And just like, cause like for example, right now, I know that there were studies that I don’t have and I know that the Kentucky African Americans Against Cancer was in the process of conducting a study of it because there were a lot of people in the west end that were coming up with cancer. And I know that they were in the process of at one point or the other of really doing a study on trying to see that relationship between the environment and the impact it’s had on the African American community.

BRINSON: I’m going to stop here, Grace. But I want to ask you just in closing, is there anything else that you want to add that I haven’t asked you and you thought as we talked that you’d like to be sure was part of the record?

LEWIS: Uh-hmm. Well one of the things that I know that as far as the Angela Davis, uhmm, movement was concerned, which really impressed me, was that it showed me really what, how our communities could be empowered nationwide. I mean when an issue is a burning issue here, it’s just a matter, right now, that the community can do almost anything. It can definitely. And like right now when I say no justice, no peace, on issues right now if I see an issue right now that moves me I’m going get out there and I’m going to take a road no matter how controversial, no matter how challenging that it is. And I think that one of the things with the Angela Davis Committee, I know that Angela would not have been freed had it not been for an Angela Davis Defense Committee. She would perhaps been on death row and probably could have been gone and out of here. But it was because it was so much attention brought to her case that she was able to be free. And right now, uhmm, if we are going to make massive changes here, it’s going have to take another movement. I mean, we, they sort of say, well, there is no more need for movements. Honey, I got news for you, as you have more of a need for a movement now. Let me give you an example right now. Angela Davis right now is in the process of dealing with the new prison industrial complex. I intend to get totally involved in that. Like I said I mentioned to you earlier, when I got involved with Prison Fellowship Project Angel Tree, I had the opportunity then, and I still do because I’m still active member of Prison Fellowship is to go into, in and out of the jails and in and out of the correctional institutions. And much of what Angela is talking about the need for continuing struggle on prisons is because in every city in every town there is a new jail, a new prison. Now, what is different now is that slavery is no longer pretty much, in other words, like what is happening now which is most disturbing is that a lot of your companies now are beginning to use inmate labor to produce goods and services. So you won’t need a NAFTA. All you will need is the inmates to be able to do it, you know, inmates to be able to do it. So, I see myself now, really, and I see the Alliance really getting totally involved with this prison--because here you are they have taken out all the training programs in there. They’ve had mostly your mothers in there. You’ve got mothers in there. They have children that have been left behind that are now being raised by struggling grandmothers, struggling people. You’ve had, now, the churches that are basically, I mean they’re growing. Like you’ve got your mega-churches but still, now they are able to help a person once they get out. But you still have got all these people behind bars. I think though that was what the message of the Angela Davis Case is that if the people were organizing themselves and that they could be aware of all of the cases we don’t hear about where it’s active. Because you know, cause they have brothers, like I say, there is a guy that is in North Carolina, this nineteen-year-old kid. And he was incarcerated and was spent, and now he’s spending, I know he’s spending at least twelve or thirteen years now of like a twenty year sentence. His name is Kumay Kamen out in North Carolina. And we went up to march on that case. And it was a case in North Carolina. And the thing is that all he did was got involved in like a robbery and he’s doing all this time. And this reminds me of the Wimbledon Ten Case, about the Wimbledon, if it had not been massive struggle and believe you me around the Wimbledon Ten Case it was massive struggle. Cause even people like Maxine Waters can tell you that the Congressional Black Caucus and everybody else had to get involved before they were able to release. So all of these mass movers, there still is a need for mass movements because the conditions have not changed. They have not changed behind bars. They have not changed in housing. The conditions are still the same. Even with what they are doing to our president now there is a need for a mass movement for them to at least stop the impeachment. But a lot of people just want to say, ah, well, he did this or he did that. But no, while I was there one of things that stuck out with me in there is the Holocaust Museum. And believe you me we are just about as close to what happened back then to what is happening right now if we don’t wake up and smell the coffee. Because we are moving toward the same thing, we are moving toward a dictatorship. Because even though, because any time that there is a major disconnect between what the people want and what your legislators want, you’re on the brink of a dictatorship. And that was one of the things that Angela said, that Thomas Jefferson said, is that ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’ And that’s, that means you’ve got to stay, you’ve got to, number one, stay on it.

BRINSON: Right, right. Thank you very much.

END OF INTERVIEW