Oral History Interview with William Turner & Chris Gilkey

BRINSON: …8 the year 2000. This is an interview with William Turner and Chris Gilkey, uh, in—where are we? Hopkinsville—Spring Pine, Whispering Pine, which is the residence of William Turner outside of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. And the interviewer is Betsy Brinson.

BRINSON: And why don’t we begin—I need to get a voice level for both of you. If each of you could give me your full name and your, uh, your birthplace and birth date.

CHRIS GILKEY: All right. My name is Chris Gilkey and I’m from Hopkinsville, lived here almost twenty-three years, born June 21, 1977.

BRINSON: Okay.

WILLIAM TURNER: William Turner, born and reared at Hopkinsville and lived at 7630 Old Palmyra Road at Whispering Pines, our farm home. Lived in this community all of my fifty-nine years.

BRINSON: Okay. [Interruption] Well, thank you very much for agreeing to talk with me today a little bit about--um, I want to talk about the whole history of legal segregation, maybe not just Hopkinsville but surrounding areas that you may know something about. And this is going to be a little unusual interview—maybe if we just say we’re having a conversation here since there are three of us that are involved in it. But that’s good. Let’s see how it goes. Let me just—tell me a little bit first, William about your early years, your family, what you might know about your ancestors.

TURNER: My paternal ancestors came from the Carolinas through Tennessee to Christian and Trigg counties in the 1790s . My maternal ancestors came from principally Madison County, Virginia to this immediate section of south Christian County, Kentucky about 1827. They were farm people, generation by generation, all the way down to and including my own grandfather and grandmother who lived here for half a century, uh, basically the first half of the twentieth century. My father was a bank teller at Planter’s Bank and Trust Company in Hopkinsville, and my mother, living now at ninety-three, is a retired second grade school teacher in the elementary schools in town. I was born and reared in town, spending the winters there and the summers here. As a child—and you can be keeping these same thoughts in mind, Chris, on your observations . . . I’ll be quiet in a minute. As a child, I grew up in a segregated community. Born in 1940, I started in first grade at Westside School in 1946. I well remember the newspapers of that approximate May 17, 1954 when Brown versus Board of Education made the headlines. This community, Betsy . . .

BRINSON: What do you remember about that decision?

TURNER: I was at the time thirteen years old and was surprised, our community was surprised as I try to reflect upon how this community felt. In order to understand that, I need to try to paint for you a word picture of what this community was like in its social attitude toward African Americans in 1954. From the settlement of this county up until the last quarter century, agriculture has been the economic and social heartbeat of Christian County; and the relationship between whites and African Americans was based upon this rural environment of working in the field. When the settlement of this county was launched in the 1780s right at the end of the American Revolution, most of the early immigrants into the county settled north of highway 68 that runs from Fairview through Hopkinsville to Grayson and divides the county pretty much in half. North of that highway is gently rolling to hilly . . . small farms. South of that highway, large flat level land which in the early days was a part of the Barrens; all the way from the Glasgow, Barren County area, all the way to Trigg County and Cumberland River and Tennessee River, Lake Barkley and Tennessee River. And the southern part of the county was substantially held together by dark tobacco production. And African-American slave labor, of course, was quite conducive to that. And so there developed a very definite class distinction in the community, in Hopkinsville and in south Christian, maybe a little bit more than in north Christian, where there were more African Americans in Hopkinsville and in south Christian. And where the African Americans lived, the institution of slavery. Well, generation by generation begat—as we, might sound like we’re recounting the ancestry of Christ—the social attitude of subservience on the part of white people toward African American. The African American lived in a cabin, did the bidding of his master and mistress, and, uh, got what was left in the way of the amenities of, of society and of culture. And so when the war between the states came on—and I use that terminology specifically to stress the point that, uh, well within my memory there were a number of Southern diehards who would never refer to it as the Civil War. In fact, in my childhood I heard some old ladies refer to it as, “the late unpleasantness”, because they—when I grew up in the forties around old people who were the children of Confederate and Union veterans and so I had the occasion in the 1940s when I was a boy to hear stories related by people who had been born in the 1860s and 1870s. My family was quite prolific, and on both sides of my mother’s house there were large families and steeped in genealogy; and as a child they got hold of me and really pumped that into me and stirred my interest to have the study of genealogy a lifelong hobby. And we had in my childhood African Americans who worked for us here on the farm and as house servants in town. We never had a cook. Higher-class people economically had a cook, but we would have, uh, a housemaid who would come once a week to clean house. And so I grew up in that environment and developed a very strong affection for them. My earliest memory, if you want me to pursue the route I’m going, . . .

BRINSON: Uh-hmm. Sure.

TURNER: . . . in relationship with African Americans was to be kept by two women, one at a time, as my mother went back to teaching when I was a year old. And Bessie was the first one and Lena was the second one.

BRINSON: Now did they come to your house or were you taken to them in their house?

TURNER: They came to my house of a morning before Mama left, and Mama would give them directions for the day. And she would be home by a quarter of three, and they would leave. I developed a very strong affection for both of those women. And I think back now on the hard way I must have given them as a devilish little boy . . .

BRINSON: Did either of them have little children that they brought occasionally?

TURNER: Lena did. The first one was a much older woman but Liven-, uh, Lena—confused it with my own wife’s name—Lena was still bearing children all during the time that she was keeping me. And one of the particular things I remember about Lena--who was a hard-working, good-hearted woman, period--is that I never really picked up any prejudice, any ill will or ill feeling from Lena at all. The particular thing I remember about Lena, on the backs of her hands and even on her arms were large splotches where the pigmentation had turned white. And she would sometimes jokingly say to me when I was a child, “Look, William,”—she called me by my first name—“I’m turning white just like you.” [laughing—Brinson] Well I didn’t see anything negative about that; it was just a point of humor. And I never remember any kind of, uh, vocal or physical, uh, reaction, uh, to her—I can’t think of the word . . . discrimination. I do remember this, and this would be considered an act of discrimination now that I think about it: when Lena was at our house on Saturday—because she came on Saturday to clean—and dinnertime came, she would eat at a separate table. And, of course, in the country when I was here, and they had labor cutting wheat like we’re doing now, my grandmother put food on the table in the kitchen for the men of the family and the white men of the neighborhood who’d come to help. And she had a very common board table out here in the backyard, always the backyard, so that’s discrimination. And she would serve the food to them out there.

BRINSON: Did Lena have any small children that she ever brought occasionally, or did you have any opportunity to play with small black children sometime?

TURNER: Most young people in my time did if there were any around. I don’t ever remember Lena bringing the children, and I don’t know where they were during the day when she was with me. No, I never remember going to her house, ever to eat or to play with the children. I remember going there to take clothes or to take something at Christmas. And I kept up with her. And I failed to mention but that Lena was the mother of Raymond Burse. Raymond Burse was for a time president of Kentucky State University at Frankfort and is now with the law firm of Wyatt, Tarrant and Combs in Louisville. And to show you how life moves around, I started teaching at County High in sixty-three, Christian County High School; and along about 1967 Raymond Burse was one of my students in eleventh grade history class. And on the night—now this will show you the relationship—on the night that Raymond graduated from Christian County High School along in the late sixties, we were all lined up in cap and gown, faculty included, ready to march into the gym for graduation. Here I’m standing in the hall of what is now Christian County Middle School and Lena comes in. And from all the way across the hall I hear and immediately recognize the voice, “Lord have mercy, honey child, there’s my William.” And she came across the room like a streak and hugged me, and I hugged her back with as much affection as would be normal among friends. And, of course, some of the people around—and remember this was in the age of the breaking down of segregation—some of the people looked around somewhat with their nose stuck up in the air. ‘What in the world is this African-American woman doing hugging you?’ It wouldn’t raise an eye today, but it did then. And I was very quick to tell them—and she seconded the motion—that she had kept me when I was little. In fact, she said to them as I remember, “Lord have mercy,”—that was her byline—“Lord have mercy, I diapered him before most of you was born.” So we had a good relationship.

BRINSON: Now you mentioned you were teaching here in 1963. Tell me a little bit about when the schools became integrated in Hopkinsville.

TURNER: As I recall, it—and I looked through these voluminous notes to try to make some sense with you—that the Hopkinsville school system, they’re called Districts now, but officially it was the Hopkinsville City School System, the word District was never used and I have a lot of their records. Goaded, I presume, by influence from the State to start integration in fifty-eight. That was token integration, of course, and the idea was, as I remember it then, to integrate one year at a time. And so the fall of fifty-eight, Gail McHenry, the daughter of an attorney, Lewis McHenry, enrolled in Belmont Elementary School. To my knowledge she was the first and the lone African American, uh, integrated into the white schools of Hopkinsville.

BRINSON: I believe Governor Ned Breathitt was practicing in Hopkinsville during that period, . . .

TURNER: That’s correct.

BRINSON: . . . and I believe he was the School Board attorney.

TURNER: That’s right. And it was during his term, as you know, that our Kentucky Civil Rights Act was passed.

BRINSON: That’s right. But, now, 1958 was four years after the Supreme Court decision and Brown. Why do you think it took the school system a few years to sort of begin to implement the decision?

TURNER: It took the whole Southland a while to do it. And I’m talking to you the way I talk in Kentucky History class. Legislatures may legislate, Supreme Courts may render decisions, but the people at large adapt to change under one and/or two situations: one is the passage of time to come to accept it; or in the case of President Eisenhower sending troops from the Eleventh Airborne division at nearby Fort Campbell to Little Rock in September of 1956, by force of bayonet; or when the people are ready to change. So to answer your question, this token integration that came in Hopkinsville four years after Brown versus Board of Education came about because of a conscious, concerned school board realizing that in time the federal government would enforce it and so let’s go on and start it. But the idea seems to me, on the state level--and you can answer this better than I--was to start it on a year-by-year basis, giving people time to change their social attitudes. And let me mention this point--which I bring out in Kentucky History class--being an adult teacher in 1964, when they threw out the idea of year-by-year integration progressing, and integrated everything--there were a number of white people, there were a number of African-American people who were emotionally not ready for it.

There were older African Americans, older white people who were not ready. Some of them would’ve never gotten ready. In fact, some of them never got ready.

BRINSON: Let me back up here and ask you: what year did you graduate from high school?

TURNER: Fifty-nine.

BRINSON: Fifty-nine. So you were attending still a segregated school.

TURNER: Totally.

BRINSON: And how many were in your graduating class?

TURNER: Eighty-one.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, but then—and then you went away to college.

TURNER: I went to Bethel, a Baptist two-year junior college here in Hopkinsville which was not integrated, fifty-nine to sixty-one. Graduated with an AA in sixty-one; went to Austin Peay in the Fall of sixty-one; graduated in sixty-three. I would honestly have to get my Annual out to see if there were any African Americans at Austin Peay. I can’t remember, so that tells you how little of an impression it made on me. And I rather believe in sixty—from sixty-one to sixty-three when I was there for the last two years, for my Bachelor’s--there might have been one or two or three. I don’t ever remember attending a class as a student with an African American student in it until I started to work on my Master’s at Murray State College, as it was then, in the summer of 1966. I do remember African Americans then. And so then I got a Master’s at Murray in sixty-nine and then in seventy-one went back to Austin Peay and got a second master’s in history and finished in seventy-four. And, of course, by that time there were African-American students scattered throughout classes.

BRINSON: Okay. At what point would you estimate that integration was achieved in the Hopkinsville school system?

TURNER: Oh, I’d love to talk to Mr. Whitney about that and get his opinion. Uh, integration started in sixty-four. I’m going to say by rule-of-thumb, from my memory, and I taught at County High through the spring of seventy-one, that integration was achieved—you mean physically or emotionally?

BRINSON: Physically.

TURNER: It was physically achieved at County High, and I’m sure at Hop’town High the same, within three years.

BRINSON: What happened to the black schools? I take it there was a Booker T. Washington Elementary. . .

TURNER: Elementary school.

BRINSON: . . . and a Crispus Attucks High School.

TURNER: High school. And Attucks High School, as we called it, closed in sixty-seven, as a high school. And so by the fall of sixty-seven integration was a physical, accomplished fact.

BRINSON: Why did they close the high school? Was it a poor facility or . . . ?

TURNER: You’ve asked me a heavy question and again I need Mr. Whitney. They closed Attucks in sixty-seven because it was an aging facility, that’s one. I wasn’t privy to conversation with any of the school board members at the time, but I have a feeling that they felt like in the closing of Attucks that they would more quickly achieve racial integration if they could get the institution of Attucks High School into the pages of history. Now, that brings on another chapter. I was a working, teaching, uh, high school instructor in 1967 and remember talking at length even, before the school board trying to get them to name a school Attucks. This wasn’t in sixty-seven; this was when they finally closed Attucks in about ’76. Chris, when did you go to Attucks?

GILKEY: I went to Booker T., and it closed in eighty-eight.

TURNER: Eighty-eight. You never went to Attucks?

GILKEY: I think Attucks closed the same year because Northdrive was built . . .

TURNER: In eighty-eight.

GILKEY: . . . and we started to Northdrive in eighty-nine.

TURNER: Okay, but you see Attucks continued as an integrated school, losing its African American identity. And I pled with the school board and anybody who would listen, to name another school when Attucks closed to keep a pride and an identity in front of the African Americans in this community.

BRINSON: How did the school board respond to your plea?

TURNER: Totally negative. No response whatsoever. They weren’t interested and I think it was a travesty of justice. I think it was a crime and I’ll always preach that gospel, that they should have done that to give, to give the African-American people a sense of pride and identity. And a case in point is what’s being done right now. See, a group of people in the community thinks the African American have acquired the Attucks property from the school board. You know that chapter?

BRINSON: Well, Mr. Whitney told me they were trying to make a museum out of it.

TURNER: And, the, uh, the problem is money . . . and asbestos.

BRINSON: Uh-huh. So it needs a lot of work?

TURNER: A world of work.

BRINSON: Tell me your recollection of what happened to the black teachers with integration?

TURNER: They were integrated into the white schools. I well remember that as a, a working teacher. I was interested in observing. And I think, by example, of Mrs. Jenny Baker who had taught for years at Attucks; and she became a librarian at Hopkinsville High. That was just one example. Miss Jenny Baker died within the last few weeks. Up until about three-four years ago when her mind failed, she would have been a marvelous person for you to interview. I’m sure Mr. Whitney mentioned her.

BRINSON: I don’t remember that he did.

TURNER: Did he, did he also mention to you Mr. Roselle Leavell?

BRINSON: No. Spell that last name.

TURNER: Roselle Leavell. L-E-A-V-E-L-L.

BRINSON: No, something about . . .

TURNER: Roselle Leavell was an elementary principal for years and highly respected within the African-American community.

BRINSON: So let me ask you--all of the black teachers were, uh, were moved and had jobs. Did any of them--were any of them demoted to jobs less than they had had in the all-black schools?

TURNER: I don’t know. I can’t answer that.

BRINSON: What happened to the principals at the two all-black schools?

TURNER: Uh, seems to me like the principal at Attucks was a coach. Wasn’t Coach Falls--you remember the name?

GILKEY: Uh-hmm.

TURNER: Wasn’t he principal at Attucks and he became a coach at Hop’town High?

GILKEY: I believe so.

TURNER: So that would have been a demotion of sorts. I don’t know that it was in pay. But to my knowledge none of the African-American teachers were left without a job. Places were found for all of them. Now, you need to know this chapter too. You know, the state legislature in 1872 required the counties to establish schools for black children. And in 1875 the first black school opened here and it was on Jackson Street, Second Street on the site of Booker T. Washington School. And it was governed by a separate entity, separate board, and it was called the Hopkinsville Colored Public School System and so remained until 1935. And in 1935 the economic situation, the economic status of the Hopkinsville Colored School System had become so debilitated and corrosive and there were charges and counter-charges of absconding with money--none of it ever proven—but it finally got down to the point that, I presume the State Department of Education would have been the agency that called upon the Hopkinsville City School Board to take over and absorb the Hopkinsville Colored Public School System, and that was done. And so, 1935, however all the schools continued to operate segregated just as they had before for, uh, another quarter century.

BRINSON: Okay. [interruption] I want to ask you some questions, William, about demographics here. I know the 1990 census, for example, showed about 30,000 people living in Hopkinsville. I don’t know how that breaks down by race.

TURNER: That is probably the hottest debated question in this entire community, and everybody you talk to is going to give you a different opinion. I would suggest that you talk to the Chamber of Commerce to get their opinion.

BRINSON: Well, what I’m, I’m really asking you though is: has the population, the black population—say from about 1930 to 1970—did it stay the same, did it decrease, did it increase? Did people migrate out of the area?

TURNER: Well, people migrated out of the area on the heels of the Depression, uh, African American as well as white. I am at a loss to answer you factually, and I realize this is going down as part of historical record; and my major concern is to be as accurate, as correct, as possible. The community ratio now—you’re going to get calls anywhere from thirty-five to forty-five percent, uh, minority. You’re going to have the comment made to you that we’re probably—oh, we are without doubt, the largest minority ratio in population of any place outside of Louisville. Thirty-five to forty-five 45 percent, I feel safe in saying. Now to answer your question, say between 1940 or fifty or sixty or seventy, has the African-American population ratio increased? I don’t have anything to back it up, but just my general skyline vision of all of the cultural history of this community--which I’ve studied for forty years--I would say that the African-American population is increasing . . . but I couldn’t prove it.

BRINSON: Now one, one individual from the black community, uh, thought that maybe back in the thirties that, that fifty-two percent of the population might have been African American. Has there ever been a majority black population that you are aware of?

TURNER: Not to my knowledge. No. And I’m surprised at the figure of fifty-two percent. It may be absolutely correct but, no, it’s never been balanced the other way, to my knowledge.

BRINSON: So that needs some researching.

TURNER: Uh-hmm. Uh, demographically you just need to talk to the people at the planning commission. Steve Borron is the contact fellow. I would trust his call on what the ratio is, probably more than anybody else.

BRINSON: Do you know, uh, when blacks migrated out of the community, were did they tend to go?

TURNER: They went to Indianapolis, or as they pronounced it, Indianopolis. And like a lot of white people, they migrated to Detroit because the automobile manufacturing plants in the thirties, and then the war production business in the forties were great meccas to them. Also, Evansville, the big shipyards at Evansville drew up a number of African Americans from here. And they also discovered--you see, when they went to Indianapolis or Evansville or Detroit in that era, they were led to believe they were going to find a much more open society, freer from segregation than here, and it wasn’t so.

GILKEY: Can I make a comment on that?

BRINSON: Sure.

GILKEY: I asked my teacher—I had an African American Studies course at Austin Peay this past semester—and I asked her about life in the 1930s and the impact the, uh, African Americans played in the community. And when the Depression hit in the 1930s, I asked her where they moved North and she said, “New York because of the Harlem Renaissance period and the need for self-expression.” She said that, “They felt like ‘the dress made the man,’ sort of the same thing.” If they went to the land of opportunity, they would better theirselves and spread their influence, and then they could move South again.”

BRINSON: Okay.

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

BRINSON: . . . that the, uh, the majority of blacks who migrated out of the area, though, went to New York, or was that a, a smaller number?

GILKEY: I think that would probably be a smaller number because New York was so, such a ( ).

BRINSON: Right.

GILKEY: And I think--I agree with him. Most of them went to Indianapolis, some may have went to North Carolina, somewhere like that, even though it was still in the southern area.

TURNER: I think they were drawn more to those northern cities rather than New York because they already had relatives or friends, connections living there.

BRINSON: Right.

TURNER: That drew them.

BRINSON: Right. Now you, you said, William, that they didn’t always find the good life the way they’d hoped to. I wonder if we’ve seen a migration back into Christian County from some of those families and individuals.

TURNER: There again, Mr. Whitney could answer that better than I. I’m, I’m really hesitant to give you a firm answer on that ‘cause I just don’t know.

BRINSON: Okay. Do you have a sense Chris?

GILKEY: Uh-uh. Sure don’t.

TURNER: But Mr. Whitney could sure speak to that.

BRINSON: Okay. In some communities, uh, people, blacks when they retire will sometimes come back to Kentucky largely because they have aging parents that they feel they need to give some support to. You don’t have any sense whether there’s that trend in Hopkinsville?

TURNER: I have known of a few examples, but I can’t really say to you that I have a sense of, of real knowledge there.

BRINSON: Okay. I want to ask you some questions around that whole late fifties, early sixties period with the sit-ins and the demonstrations that we saw in Louisville and Lexington certainly. And I wonder if there’s any evidence of that in Hopkinsville area?

TURNER: Not that I’ve really known of, but, you know, through that era, Betsy, some events could have taken place and I, as a teenager, just chose to ignore it or act like it wasn’t happening. I never knew of any demonstrations, any sit-ins in any restaurants or other public facilities here. We no longer had a—our last bus system closed in fifty-six, so we never had a challenge to that. I can well remember a time, of course, when African Americans never darkened the door of a public facility like a restaurant in the late fifties into the very early sixties. Uh, of course, Fort Campbell, sixteen miles to the south, was an influence that helped bring integration, maybe a little more rapidly because of the number of African-American troops down there. But that’s a whole other chapter to talk about the relationship between Hopkinsville and Fort Campbell. Uh, I remember, uh--speaking of public transportation--I certainly remember riding the Greyhound bus in the late fifties; and African Americans sat in the back. I certainly remember the Jim Crow laws as they applied to passenger trains coming through here, where we had all-white coaches and all-black coaches. And I was very much involved in the restoration of our old Louisville & Nashville Railroad passenger station in town. And when we undertook the restoration of that building in the eighties, several of we railroad buffs had already removed railroad-related items from the building to keep them from being stolen; because railroad buffs do a lot of midnight requisitioning, if you get my drift. And among the things that we removed from the building, and then in time, put back when the building was restored—but among the things we removed from the building and did not put back were the old porcelain signs: Colored Waiting Room. Because in all of my time growing up the north room--where Penny Jennings office is now, Bright, Inc.--was a colored waiting room and they had separate restrooms. And the next room south was the ticket agent’s office, then the next room south was the white waiting room.

BRINSON: You probably remember separate drinking fountains.

TURNER: Oh, absolutely. I surely do. And I remember that when a passenger train would come in that white people got off the train first, and then African American. And for the people about to get on the train, white people got on first then the African Americans got on second.

BRINSON: What about movie theaters?

TURNER: Oh, yes. Uh, in the late fifties we had three movie theaters here in town. In fact, the Kentucky closed in fifty-six. Must be a bird up there in the gutter, Chris. Uh, the Kentucky closed in fifty-six; the Princess closed in seventy-two; the Alhambra closed about seventy-eight or nine and is now a center for the performing arts. The Princess and the Alhambra both had balconies. Those balconies were reserved for African Americans, and I can well remember going to movies from my earliest memory--which would have been during World War II on up until those movie theaters closed--and with the Princess closing about seventy-two, it was becoming integrated gradually. The Alhambra was not as much so. The Alhambra was a more uptown movie theater than the Princess; but I certainly do remember segregated seating in the movie theaters--and the churches. Now that’s another chapter. I don’t know whether you want to address that or not.

BRINSON: We can go to the churches. I’m going to come back and ask you about some other facilities too.

TURNER: Well, we’ll cover the churches later then.

BRINSON: Okay. What about libraries? Was there a black, separate black library?

TURNER: No, never was.

BRINSON: So what did blacks do for library privileges?

TURNER: Your research may find me incorrect on this, but I think I’m right in what I’m saying to you, that when Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Foundation he had two requirements: one, that a community would maintain, would keep up a library once he gave the money to build it and stock it; and that it would be open and free to all. And when you go to Owensboro tomorrow you’ll see the old Carnegie library on Frederica Street in downtown Owensboro, and as I remember--unless they covered it up--cut in stone over the front door is the inscription: “Open and Free to All.” Now in 1913 the Carnegie Foundation sent a check for about twelve or thirteen thousand to the City of Hopkinsville, and with it they built the old yellow brick Carnegie Library at the corner of Eighth and Liberty in downtown Hopkinsville. It’s closed now and my dream to make it a historical research center.

BRINSON: I don’t believe, though, in Hopkinsville that blacks were allowed . . .

TURNER: No.

BRINSON: . . . to use the privileges until the sixties.

TURNER: No, they were not but that could not have been enforced.

BRINSON: What do you mean?

TURNER: I mean by that the Carnegie Foundation gave the money, as I understood it, with the understanding it would be open to them; and evidently they just never did know it. But Mr. Whitney could surely tell you that. And I don’t recall African Americans using the public library. And I would have a feeling, though I never knew it firsthand, that some of the churches—I know Freeman Chapel has a library, and that the attorney, Clayburn Merriwether, bequeathed to it. So I would presume they availed themselves in the church libraries.

BRINSON: How about swimming pools and parks?

TURNER: Yes.

BRINSON: During segregation?

TURNER: Uh-hmm. Our first parks to develop in Hopkinsville came with money left by the benefactor, John C. Layton, Jr., who died in 1909. In 1912 Virginia Park and Peace Park, both at the intersection of Ninth and Tenth, were open to white people. In about 1919 the Wilgus playgrounds were opened, three of them . . .

BRINSON: Spell that.

TURNER: Wilgus. W-I-L-G-U-S. Will Wilgus was postmaster at one time, had no children. When he died he left his money to the city to develop playgrounds, so three playgrounds, rather than parks, were developed. They were segregated in the early days. And, uh, again, Mr. Whitney might have related to you about an African-American park here, but I don’t know of one.

BRINSON: No, he didn’t.

TURNER: I don’t think we had one. They just played in the yard and in the streets, or on the school grounds at Attucks and Booker T. That was it. Now swimming pools, that’s another thing. Our first public—well, it was privately owned—but our first public swimming pool here opened in 1922. Ware, W-A-R-E, Ware’s Crystal Swimming Pool, and it was definitely segregated. It would become Carter Swimming Pool later, and I would say it was not integrated until the late sixties. Now in the nineteen-- late thirties, we had a beloved African-American physician here, Dr. Bankie, B-A-N-K-I-E, Bankie O. Moore.

BRINSON: Moore.

TURNER: M-O-O-R-E. And Dr. Moore opened what they called the natatorium and we have a postcard--I collect old Hop’town postcards—and we have a postcard of the Moore natatorium. Mr. Whitney surely mentioned it because the African-American children went there. It’s filled in now as I understand it.

BRINSON: Tell me what, tell me about the natatorium. What is it?

TURNER: It was a swimming pool.

BRINSON: A swimming pool.

TURNER: To my—that’s all I know about it is what he’s told me about it and having a picture of it. And it was just a concrete swimming pool.

BRINSON: And Mr. Whitney just remembers swimming in the river.

TURNER: Well, you see, the natatorium . . .

BRINSON: But he is much older, too, so . . .

TURNER: . . . would have come after that. You ask him about the natatorium. I would put 1935 or thirty-eight on the natatorium, and it was operated on through the war.

BRINSON: . . . adult by then so . . .

TURNER: Yes. I never saw it and I never knew about it until I found a postcard of it, and then went to him; and, oh yes, he remembered it but never used it. Now talking about swimming pools, I think this is one of the most interesting contrasts you’ll ever run across in your study of implementation of integration in Kentucky history. There was Ware’s swimming pool for white children; there was Moore’s natatorium for the African- American children. Now, Carter’s pool was way out of town—by way out of town, out near Western State Hospital. And along about 1948, the Hopkinsville Kiwanis Club undertook a fund-raising effort to build a municipal swimming pool out on Richards Street. And so from 1948 through about 1956 or seven they held an annual fund-raising event in the auditorium at Hopkinsville High to raise money to build a segregated municipal swimming pool; which they did and which opened and operated for a number of years and finally closed when integration was upon us.

BRINSON: Where was that pool located? Do you remember?

TURNER: On Richards Street. Richards Street out near the fairgrounds. Now the annual fund-raising event? A blackface minstrel.

BRINSON: Hmm.

TURNER: This is what I mean about the paradox of this whole thing. We had a group of very prominent businessmen here in town who blacked their faces and put on an absolutely fantastic minstrel. I’ve got programs for it.

BRINSON: You actually attended?

TURNER: I attended nearly every one of them. It was a big event. Remember I was a little boy growing up, before TV, thank goodness.

BRINSON: Right.

TURNER: I like TV, but it has its place. And so the Kiwanis Minstrel along in November before Thanksgiving, in the auditorium of the old Hopkinsville High School would run for three or four nights to a packed house; and eight or nine-hundred can be packed in that auditorium. It was big.

BRINSON: …sold tickets, that’s how they raised money?

TURNER: Sold tickets, raised money to build a segregated municipal swimming pool by blacking their faces. That was one event of two that I remember growing up in town that was always a big money-raising effort. The other one had nothing to do with our story of integration, but it was for any civic group, principally men, to put on a womanless wedding. Did you ever hear of one?

BRINSON: I have, but why don’t you say a bit about that?

TURNER: Well, it blew my mind a few years ago when I happened to mention a womanless wedding in class, and given today’s connotation of the twisted social attitude of some people, they looked upon it as some bizarre sexual experience. And I just went in shock. I said, “No, it was all men who dressed up as men and women.”

BRINSON: Right. And you were going to talk about the churches.

TURNER: When settlers came into this community in the decade after the American Revolution, they brought their slaves with them. According to the census figures, on up through 1850 there were a number of free men of color, c-o-l-o-u-r. We are fortunate in having the old church records, the Board minutes, the Rolls, membership Rolls of the Baptist church, the Christian, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Roman Catholic. Every one of them had African-American members on the church rolls: Mary, slave of Samuel Buckman. So many of the African Americans here took the surname of their owner at Emancipation. Now the Methodist church, the oldest in the community, 1800, Presbyterian 1813, the Baptist 1818, the Cumberland Presbyterian’s 1823, the Episcopalian’s 1831, the Christians, or Disciples of Christ, 1832 and Roman Catholic 1866. Every one of them had African-American members, peaceably. Oftimes the black group would meet in the afternoon; sometimes they would meet with their counterpart group.

BRINSON: So they didn’t attend the same service?

TURNER: Not always. Not always. Some did. Some older black mammies would go when their family went.

BRINSON: Right.

TURNER: Now most all these churches, to my knowledge, were equipped with a slave gallery, a balcony. In fact, a mile across the country, as I point to the northeast, is old Locust Grove Baptist Church, was built in 1856. It still has a balcony. It was the slave gallery; the slaves sat up there. Now about 1851 or fifty-two, the group who are now Virginia Street Baptist Church, of which Mr. Whitney is part, peaceably requested a removal of their church letter--you know how the Baptists are about the church letter, membership. And for a time they met in the church as they had been, but as a separate entity. And then, in time, moved into an old cotton gin building at Fourteenth and Virginia where that office building is owned by Planter’s Bank. And about 1874 built a brick church—we have a picture of it in our pictorial history—and then in 1892 built Virginia Street Baptist Church which stands now at Third and Virginia. So Virginia Street Baptist Church was the first one in this community to segregate itself, to the best of my knowledge. Following that in 1866 there was a very prominent minister named Freeman, and he took the title Bishop in what evolved as the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, C.M.E. You’re familiar with that letter designation. So in 1866 Freeman Chapel C.M.E. was organized. And, uh, the Baptists have always had more money of those two congregations. Freeman Chapel is a beautiful testimony of a group of people hanging on who absolutely were on the verge on losing their church properties for years. In 1926 they built the building they’re in now, and all through the Depression it appeared that the bank would have to foreclose on them at any time. They simply didn’t have the money. A real testimony to their—like my favorite cartoon of Garfield hanging by his paws out an upstairs window with the sash down on his paws--Lord just help me hang in there. And so Freeman Chapel became the second one.

BRINSON: Now let me jump ahead here a little bit and ask you, uh, into the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, how, uh--talk a little bit, if you know, about the ministers of these black churches and the role they might have played in terms of trying to eliminate segregation.

TURNER: I think they tried in their humble way to not necessarily end segregation, but to begin to break it down. But they were like the voice crying in the wilderness against the white community who was so opposed to it. I think of men like Reverend A.R. Leslie who was minister at Virginia Street for over fifty years beginning about 1943 or four, somewhere along there. I think about Bishop Freeman at Freeman Chapel. I think about the ministers they had, in my memory, at Main Street Baptist Church, which is near Mt. Olive. Uh, I wish you could interview Reverend Leslie . . .

BRINSON: Well, I’m going to.

TURNER: . . . because he’s living history. To answer that question specifically: I’m sure they tried but they had a hard way to go. Let me put it to you this way, when the Baptists—when the African-American people segregated themselves by choice, to the best of my knowledge, to form their separate churches, they established for the African-American people what, in my judgement, the church should be for everybody. And here’s my example. You can pick any white church in this community you want, barring none; on Sunday morning, go there and in most instances [clears throat] people will be rattling around like a sack of bones. I mean a smaller crowd. [clears throat] Second Baptist will have a big crowd, white church, but most of the white churches now are spasmodically, sporadically poorly attended, our own included. You pick any African-American church you want in this community; on Sunday morning, it’s packed. Let me give you an example [clears throat] of the reception I got once several years ago when I went to Virginia Street Baptist Church to the funeral of the mother of one of my students. First of all, he was very surprised that I came; but I feel as a teacher that that’s a part of my role. And I went in probably twenty minutes before the services started. I knew by reputation that the service would be long and, knowing my time constraints, I said to the usher at the door who was rolling out the red carpet, so to speak, that, “I would appreciate it if I could sit near the back because I would not be able to stay the entire time.” I know the way funerals are held here. The people come and go, you know, depending on their schedule. And he said, “No, we want you to sit down front.” I was given an honored place to sit. I don’t think it was because I was white. I think it was because the congregation knew that I was a teacher, and had been for several generations of them. And when the preacher got up, after a song or two, he said, “We have one among us who has favored us with his presence.” And something just rang a bell in me he was going to call on me.

BRINSON: Were you the only white person there?

TURNER: No. Probably half a dozen. Church was full. He said, “We have one with us and it is my understanding he will not be able to stay the entire time. And so, fearful that we may not have the opportunity later, I’ll call upon him now to come forward and make some remarks.” Now Chris is the superintendent of our Sunday School, a job that I had for thirty years, so I grew up in the church and there learned extemporaneous speaking. Even when you put me on the spot, and I was on the spot, ‘cause I was in the minority. I learned that day what it was like to be a minority. And I got up and on the way up uttered a little prayer: “Lord, help me say what is appropriate.” And I guess I did. And so I, I centered my remarks on a contribution to that woman and, and her contribution on this young man who’s in my class now. But I’ll never forget that. Never, never. I finished what I had to say and sat down, and then left a little while later.

BRINSON: Was there an NAACP chapter here?

TURNER: Yes, there is now.

BRINSON: There is now?

TURNER: Yes.

BRINSON: Do you know anything about the history of it? Where there might be records for it?

TURNER: Your contact person would be John Banks, B-A-N-K-S.

BRINSON: Okay.

TURNER: Is John Banks back at the post office here?

GILKEY: I don’t think so.

TURNER: John Banks works for the U.S. Postal Service and worked a window at the post office for a long time and got a job as postmaster, uh, north of here in a little town. I can’t remember which one.

BRINSON: And what’s his connection?

TURNER: He is president.

BRINSON: He’s currently a president?

TURNER: To my knowledge, or he would know who the current president is because he has been president in recent years.

BRINSON: Okay. To your recollection, was the NAACP here a strong voice around segregation . . .

TURNER: Yes, yes it was.

BRINSON: . . . the elimination of segregation?

TURNER: And the NAACP—again Mr. Whitney can help you—but the NAACP, in my opinion, was a strong voice here in the twenties and thirties, not that any white people paid it any attention. But I tried to answer your question. It was a strong voice; it was heard. Not implemented or followed, but heard.

BRINSON: Okay.

TURNER: And I’m sure they must have records but I don’t know.

BRINSON: I want to talk a little bit about voting, uh, and African Americans who might have been elected, went into public office here. Has there—tell me about African Americans and voting. [pause] Maybe that is a little too broad. You want me to ask you . . .?

TURNER: No. No.

BRINSON: Okay.

TURNER: Just kind of collecting some thoughts. I remember as a child hearing my daddy, a bank teller, relate about vote buying. Vote buying. Vote buying was a big thing here. That’s the particular thing I remember about African Americans and voting.

BRINSON: How did that work?

TURNER: There is a channel of communication and a hierarchy running through the culture of our community just like a river. Like I say, the Mississippi as it meanders. And early on, the young African-American people learned who the contacts were to get money. Now this—I don’t think it was widespread, but it was a fact. And so naturally the white men who were desiring office knew the key people in the black community to contact and how much money to dole out. And sometimes some of the money was placed in the hands of an African-American man to dole out, and sometimes the politician himself doled it out; always before election day. And it got to be a joke among some African Americans that they would accept money from both sides because, you see, the politician never really knew what they were doing. And so what a number of our politicians did--namely among them was Dr. Frank H. Bassett, the one time mayor and about four times county court clerk. He campaigned every day of the year and he made friends with the African-American community, and cultivated that friendship every day so that I doubt if he had to buy many votes; but he was always extending favors to them in the form of coal and watermelon and clothes. And he was buying their vote, buying their loyalty.

BRINSON: In some communities, William, you probably know that along with cash for vote, uh, whisky was offered too.

TURNER: Oh yes, that was a big thing here. Absolutely. For years and years the voting place was in Beverly’s Store, just right through those trees in front of you; and I’ve heard my grandfather talk about the politicians down the road and away from the store handing a fifth to an African-American man to buy his vote. Absolutely, because in a lot of cases the African-American man was more interested in the whisky than he was the vote.

BRINSON: Okay. In the fifties and the sixties here, do you remember or have you seen any evidence of voter registration drives in the black community or an effort to . . .

TURNER: Launched by the black community itself, I don’t know of it. Now Livena, my wife, has long been an active member of the League of Women Voters; and they’ve gone into the schools and into the churches in the black community with voter registration pushes. Don’t you want to move your chair around a little bit? The sun is getting . . .

BRINSON: No.

TURNER: . . . in your face. Okay. But as far as a voter registration drive initiated and carried out in the black community, I’m not really aware of that.

BRINSON: Okay. How about party affiliation for the black community here? Is that principally Democrat?

TURNER: It is now. Oh, I can give you the political history of the vote, and I’ll try to do it in a nutshell. Poor Chris not going to get a chance to say a word.

GILKEY: Go ahead. I’m learning.

TURNER: This county was predominantly Republican in vote from the end of the War Between the States until about 1920. Naturally so. The Republican Party was in power when Emancipation came. You would expect African Americans to support that. One man turned the county black vote around from Republican to Democratic long before civil rights legislation, and that man was Dr. Frank H. Bassett, who was elected Mayor of Hopkinsville in 1918. He was elected County Court Clerk in 1922 and was thereafter subsequently reelected County Court Clerk every four years until he died in 1950. And I jokingly say to our county court clerks, “You know, if Dr. Bassett was still living, you’d still be waiting your turn to be County Court Clerk.” [chuckle—Brinson] And he did that by befriending all people, white as well as African American. And there was a single event that turned this county’s black vote around. I’d like Mr. Whitney to talk to this. Did he talk about it?

BRINSON: No.

TURNER: Well . . .

BRINSON: Well, he talked to me about the change of government structure.

TURNER: From Councilmatic to City—from Commission to Councilmatic in 1953? ‘Cause he’s one of the original Councilmen appointed by Governor Wetherby in fifty-three. On the 7th of December in 1917, a snow started falling in this community. Little did the Republicans realize that with that snow would come their loss of control politically in this county. Now I’m trying to whet your appetite as I do my students.

BRINSON: Well, you have. You have.

TURNER: It snowed for three days and nights and then stopped. It was a dry snow.

BRINSON: I’m going to stop you and turn the tape over.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE TWO

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE

TURNER: All right. After that three days and nights of snow, a dry, uh, of a dry snow, a wind set up and it drifted this county. Were you in Kentucky in January of seventy-eight?

BRINSON: No.

TURNER: Now you may have lived where you’ve had snows coming out your ears, more than you could . . .

BRINSON: No.

TURNER: . . . imagine. But the worst snow in our memory came when he was a year old and, no, you weren’t a year old. You were born . . .

GILKEY: Seventy-eight.

TURNER: Uh-huh.

GILKEY: That was the year I was born.

TURNER: Okay. Uh, we had a drifting snow like that in seventy-eight as we did in 1917. And the drifting snow paralyzed the community. When the wind stopped, the temperature dropped. And for the month of January 1918--when we were in the bottom of World War I--the temperature rarely ever got above zero and never above freezing, so that blown snow froze. And my grandparents and my mother and her brother, the father of the two men you met at the schoolhouse; and my aunt, who taught school in this building, were all here in that house; and all of them but my aunt were down with pneumonia. Have you heard of the terrible death rate of pneumonia and flu?

BRINSON: Right.

TURNER: 1918. Well every one of my family members survived it, and the aunt never contracted it. Now that’s a sideline. Now a lot of our African Americans relied upon a daily purchase of coal for fuel for heat. Many of them walked the railroad tracks picking up coal that fell off of railroad, uh, coal cars that came through. The snow drifted the track and the African-American people really began to suffer. Dr. Bassett saw that. He was always like a cat with nine lives. Dr. Bassett always had a connection here or there he could plug in and get results; plus he had a fabulous memory of names and befriended everybody. And, uh, called in his favors. Well when the railroad was blocked—African Americans couldn’t get coal—he just happened to have a brother-in-law who was a vice president of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. So he telegraphed his brother-in-law in Louisville to get snow plows in here. L & N didn’t even own any snowplows! And the brother-in-law notified him back, and Dr. Bassett was quite a salty- tongued character and he wired back, "Hell, go out on another road and get one!” Well a snowplow cut the drifts from Evansville to Hopkinsville to get us coal that was stockpiled in Evansville to Hopkinsville. When the first carload of coal was spotted—that’s what we say when we mean the car’s put on the sidetrack—Dr. Bassett stepped out of the front steps of the courthouse and hollered out, “Free coal for everybody!” And they all knew where. And I mean they just descended upon the Seventh and Railroad point to get free coal. Of course, he’d bought the whole carload of coal. He, fortunately, married the daughter of the richest man in town. Well word came to him later in the day that some of these African Americans were bucking rank. Now this story is going to shock some people out of their clothes, but they’ll get over it. We’re talking about history, factual history, and we don’t galvanize it. So Dr. Bassett reached in the cash register of the clerk’s office and pulled out his pearl-handled pistol and stuck it down in his britches. Walked the three blocks up to the railroad where the African Americans were lined up, and he climbed up on the car; he pulled out that pistol and pointed it at them. He said, “The next one”—and he referred to them by the very negative name by which they were known, the “n” word, in those days—“the next one who breaks line, I’m going to shoot you dead as hell.” He didn’t mean that; he bluffed them. They quit breaking line and they were convinced that he was fair. They knew he was a Democrat. They flocked to the courthouse in mass and changed their registration. When he died in 1950--it was a hot August evening—I was there when his body was put in the ground. The whole town was there. There was an old, old custom in Kentucky, as you probably know, of opening a casket on the grave for the people who hadn’t gone to the funeral to view the remains before burial. A lot of people think that’s terribly gruesome. I don’t find anything about funerals gruesome. I grew up with funerals. If I hadn’t been a teacher, I’d probably been a funeral director. That’s just as much a part of life as living. One of the respected African-American men in the crowd--and the African Americans stood to the back--came up to Dr. Bassett’s son and namesake when they finished the service and said, “Mr. Jimmy, my people wanted to see Mr. Doctor one more time.” They called him Mr. Doctor. “Is it all right? Would you open the casket?” And he consulted his mother and, of course, they agreed. “Yes. They want to see him, we’ll open the casket.” It was about four o’clock in August; dark comes about a quarter to nine here. I didn’t stay but I heard the story that at dark the African Americans were still filing by looking at him. That to me is one of the best stories. Now let me tell you another story. This same Dr. Bassett who knew them all, befriended them all, gave them free medical service. In fact, he was the kind if you called and said you needed a doctor, he would say, quote,“Hell, do you got any money?” And if you said, “Yes,” he would say, “Hell, get another doctor.” But if you said, “No sir, Doc, I don’t have any money.” “Well, hell, I’ll be right there.” There was an old preacher, an old African-American preacher, named Tom Pettus, P-E-T-T-U-S, who during the Depression, which many of the African Americans call the Compression . . .

BRINSON: Compression?

TURNER: . . . ‘cause they were compressed.

BRINSON: Hmm. That’s a term I haven’t heard.

TURNER: They understood that. Well old Tom Pettus hung around the courthouse, jackleg preacher, trying to make a little money marrying people. You’ve heard the story. You commit it to memory, boy, so you can quote it when I’m dead.

GILKEY: I’m listening. [laughter—Brinson]

TURNER: And, uh, they were great friends. One day Dr. Bassett heard that old Tom Pettus was sick. Now as people listen to this tape in the future, and I know some will, I don’t want them to get the wrong impression. I want the hearers of this tape to realize that there was a great bond of affection, of love, between this white man and this African- American man, and the story I’m about to tell you was not meant to be racially derogatory. So if any hearer takes it that way, you’re taking it incorrectly. So after Doc had made his rounds at the hospital--he was anesthesiologist, Vanderbilt graduate doctor, practiced medicine and practiced politics and practiced humanitarianism--he went over on ( ) Street where this old noted divine stayed. To this good day many of our African Americans refer to living at a place as ‘staying’ at a certain place. And the clerk stepped up on the porch and looked through the screen door and saw the sick, old Tom Pettus on his knees by the bed, praying, “Lord, this is your humble servant, Tom Pettus. And Lord I want you to know that I’s ready. I’s ready to meet you any time you call me. I ain’t anxious, but I’m ready. All you got to do, Lord, is send the Angel Gabriel knock on my door and I’m ready.” Now Dr. Bassett loved a good practical joke, made no difference upon who—and he took them in return. That’s the mark of maturity. And again the preacher went, “Lord, just send Gabriel to knock on my door. I’m ready.” And Dr. Bassett could not resist any longer and so he [sound of rapping] knocked on that door. And that old preacher responded, “Who’s that?” And as angelic as Dr. Bassett could respond, he said, “This is the Angel Gabriel. The Lord has sent me to claim the soul of Tom Pettus.” Stone silence in that cabin. And in a moment, that silence broken with, “He ain’t here. He don’t stay here no more. He’s gone!” (laughter—Turner, Brinson) You know, I tell that to some young people, they don’t understand. They think he was making fun. He wasn’t making fun at all. One day Dr. Bassett walked through a tobacco factory where they were pricing tobacco, and there were some African-American men sitting on a platform. And Dr. Bassett walked by and just gently kicked an African-American man on the shin. Nothing negative about it, wasn’t racial. It was just a sense of paying some attention, like I might do that, and walked on after saying, “My God, I thought you’d died and gone to hell last winter.” The doctor had said to the African-American man. The African-American man smiled and was quoted to have said to the others, “My, my, that’s my kind of man. He paid attention to me.” Now that’s a quote from Allen Trout. Allen Trout was a forerunner of Joe Creason who wrote a daily column in the Louisville Courier-Journal in the forties. And shortly before Dr. Bassett died in 1950, Allen Trout came to Hopkinsville and interviewed him, and did an article in The Courier-Journal. And it’s marvelous insight into this humanitarian.

BRINSON: When we introduced you in the beginning, we neglected to say that you were the county historian. But you’ve also got a lot of acting ability, don’t you? [laughter—Gilkey]

TURNER: Tried to cultivate it.

BRINSON: Make history come alive for students and . . .

TURNER: What little talent I might have in that direction, I have used it to the fullest to try to motivate students.

BRINSON: It’s very effective.

TURNER: It does concern me though at times, Betsy, when I tell a story like this and some students misunderstand.

BRINSON: Well, I wanted to ask you about that. Is, is there a difference of understanding by race there. What do African-American students think when you tell that story, as opposed to white students?

TURNER: Chris, can you help me on that? You’ve been in class where I’ve told it with African-American students there. They know me by reputation first.

GILKEY: I think it depends on their background, and how they grow up and what they’re taught. Just like when we hear a story and the way we interpret it. I don’t know. I had an African-American friend that I roomed with at Murray State and he was in his class. And I, I can’t remember what he thought of that story, but I know he told it in the class.

TURNER: Did you ever hear George—this student—uh, say anything negative about any stories? Of course, I didn’t tell racially prejudice stories.

BRINSON: Right.

GILKEY: I think the majority of African Americans that I go to school with, when they hear a story like that, I think they’re glad to hear it because it shows them more about their culture and their knowledge of history. I don’t think the majority of them object to stories like that.

TURNER: I wouldn’t attempt to tell them if my reputation hadn’t preceded me. And every one of them who walk in that class have heard enough to know, hopefully, that I don’t mean any ill will . . .

GILKEY: Right.

TURNER: . . . that I’m simply trying to convey history through an inspiring and interesting and an entertaining manner.

BRINSON: Okay.

TURNER: I’ve had some people who didn’t understand, you know, outside of class, and did not see—like the Tom Pettus story and the Angel Gabriel—they didn’t see the humor of that. But I reminded them that this man was from a different time. It’s, in a way, similar to the message I try to get across when I try to make valid our dropping of the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There was a war on and you cannot perceive any light other than the glasses of your town and what’s involving you right now. You’re concerned about a proper route to Owensboro. Got it on your mind. Next week, you won’t give it a thought.

BRINSON: Right.

TURNER: And when a war’s going on, you’re doing everything you can to win. And if it means killing several extra thousand instead of you, you don’t give a second thought.

BRINSON: I have a couple more questions to ask you. If I don’t move ahead, we’re going to be here till a quarter of nine . . .

TURNER: And I can stay with you. I’ve said that already. [laughter—all]

BRINSON: May have to come back. [laughing] In 1964 there was a rally in Frankfort in support of the public accommodations statute that was pending in the legislature. Governor Breathitt was in office at that time, and it’s the only statewide rally of this kind that we know about. I wonder if you, uh, knew whether anybody from Hopkinsville went to Frankfort for that event.

TURNER: I have no idea. That would have been in the spring of my first year of teaching. And I was so centered on what was going on in the classroom that I honestly must admit to you that, except for the Kennedy assassination, and the Freedom March

the previous August, I remember very little that was going on in the state or the nation that first year; because I was really burning the oil trying to make a teacher. And I’m sure some from here went. I would think without doubt that Louis McHenry--and I would think that Hal and Betty Thurman went.

BRINSON: And Mr. Whitney went.

TURNER: Did he?

BRINSON: He recalled that for me yesterday, and I’ll just share with you . . .

TURNER: Yes, I would be interested, uh-huh.

BRINSON: He recalled there was a bus and there probably were a number of cars that went along with the bus and that, that it was a predominantly black group. He didn’t actually recall that anybody white—although at the rally itself there were both white and black—and that they made the trip up and back in the same day, which is a good trip.

TURNER: And that was—well, let’s see . . . WK Parkway had stretches open, but I don’t think it was open all the way. Might have been. I know my wife and I married thirty-seven years ago today, and we went to E’town and Lexington on our honeymoon, and we didn’t travel on WK Parkway. It wasn’t finished. That was in June of sixty-three. This is in sixty-four. I expect it was open cause it was just right ready to open when we married.

BRINSON: Well, he also recalled that it was a very inspirational day, and Martin Luther King was there and Jackie Robinson, and Peter, Paul and Mary sang in front of the Capitol.

TURNER: Was it warm weather?

BRINSON: No, it was actually cold in March and very rainy.

TURNER: Hmm.

BRINSON: And there’s a—you get differences of opinion about how many people were actually there. Some people say only five thousand; some people say as many as twenty-five. The press tends to report it around ten to twelve thousand people. But he, he said he knew—he didn’t think it was twenty-five thousand but it was a good crowd. And, uh . . .

TURNER: I just—I remember it happening, but I wasn’t mentally involved in it.

BRINSON: And, of course, the bill did not pass that year. It was another session before public accommodations passed.

TURNER: This reminds me of that old quote. Was it from William Cullen Bryant? I don’t remember exactly. “The wheels of justice turn ever so slowly but they do mete out justice.” And I think of that when I, in my mind’s eye, see that lone Chinese fellow standing in front of the gun of that tank in Tieneman Square in eighty-nine.

BRINSON: Yeah. That’s right. Well, Chris, you were born in 1977, right?

GILKEY: Right.

BRINSON: After all of what we’ve talked about actually happened. I wonder, when you were growing up and in your--before you met William Turner, did you hear any of these stories in school or in the community? What, what did you learn growing up?

GILKEY: Well I was trying to brainstorm when he was telling his stories about his childhood and the experiences he had grown up with. I was thinking about our communities and how they were still segregated; and as time has moved on, more integration has taken place in my neighborhood that I live in now. I lived there twenty-two years in the same spot.

BRINSON: Tell me about your neighborhood. Where is that?

GILKEY: It’s of here. And, uh, my fondest memory of African Americans would probably be elementary school. When I grew . . .

BRINSON: You, of course, went to an integrated school.

GILKEY: Right, yeah, and that was Holiday Elementary School which is located in the community. And I don’t--I very seldom ever saw, ever saw African Americans and had very much integration with them. My mother’s family is from Trenton, Kentucky which is in Todd County; and there was a woman that I was very fond of and her name was Mary Lizzy.

BRINSON: Mary Lizzy?

GILKEY: Mary Lizzy. And she used to walk the streets of Trenton and everyone knew her. I don’t know, just thinking about her, I think that’s my most, earliest memory of an African American. And I can remember us taking clothes, when I was younger, to be ironed by an African-American family; but until I hit elementary school, I don’t think I ever was integrated very much with African Americans, whether I played with them or talked to them. But when I started playing sports, like Little League and Junior Pro Basketball, that’s where most of my integration took place. And when I hear about segregation and how much integration has taken place since the 1950s and 1960s, it’s just, it’s hard for other people to understand when they don’t study it like William and I do. It’s just a totally different world to them.

BRINSON: But is it hard, even though you’ve studied it, is it hard for you to sort of look at your personal experiences growing up . . .

GILKEY: Right, yeah, uh-huh.

BRINSON: . . . and imagine that it was that different?

GILKEY: ‘Cause it’s nothing for me to go to school with an African American now. I don’t think twice about it. But to think what they thought in the 1940s and 50s when they were totally segregated. It’s just hard for me to kind of grasp the concept of how people got along when they saw people on the street. ‘Cause when I pass an African American now, I say ‘hello,’ you know, just as cordial and friendly as I am to a white person.

BRINSON: So maybe we’re making progress with change of attitudes . . .

GILKEY: I think so.

BRINSON: . . . and behaviors and . . .

GILKEY: Uh-huh. I have a lot of African-American friends now, probably just as much as I do white friends, cause I play sports and basketball and baseball; and I think that’s really helped out a lot with integration of ( ) people. But in 1947 when Jackie Robinson—was it forty-seven or forty-eight when Jackie Robinson played in . . .?

BRINSON: Not sure.

GILKEY: But I think that was a stepping stone for generations to come, in my opinion.

BRINSON: Tell me, though, of, of the white community here in Hopkinsville, do you see that there--is there a racist element today?

GILKEY: I think there still is a racist element. I think certain areas are still segregated and I think that . . .

BRINSON: What are those areas?

GILKEY: Let’s see how I can put this? I don’t want to—I don’t know—there’s an African-American side of town then there’s a white side of town. There’s still integration, but I think they still live amongst theirselves and that white people still live amongst themselves. But there are integrated neighborhoods today. But I think that we definitely are making progress in some sense.

BRINSON: I don’t know if you’re aware but, actually, Hopkinsville, I believe in 1968, passed an open housing ordinance here.

GILKEY: Oh.

BRINSON: Let me see if I’m giving you the right date on that. Just a minute. No, I’m sorry. 1971.

GILKEY: Seventy-one.

BRINSON: And it wasn’t the first town to do so. It was about the fifth, I think, in Kentucky. And don’t know how effective that really was. Again, it may be a case that, you know, that government passed the ordinance but, like the Brown decision, it took a while.

GILKEY Right. That’s exactly what I was just thinking. When I was born in seventy-seven, I think that I lived probably eight to ten years before I ever saw an African-American family in our neighborhood. And I’d say percentage-wise now in our neighborhood, it’s probably eighty-twenty in favor of the majority. But I still think that’s a stepping stone, that we’re integrating a lot more than we used to.

BRINSON: Right. I’m curious about you and, uh, what you plan to do. Tell me again-- you mentioned a little bit that you’re interested in being a history teacher and . . .

GILKEY: Yes ma’am.

BRINSON: . . . going to graduate school.

GILKEY: I graduated high school in 1995, from Hopkinsville High School. I then

enrolled at Hopkinsville Community College and my major was dentistry, which is quite a contrast from history. I got a job in a dental lab and thought, well, this is kind of neat, so I thought I’d pursue my career. So I got enrolled in math courses and science courses. And I’ve always been a lover of history but never knew what a career could take place or where I’d take it. So I picked dentistry as my major and spent a semester taking chemistries and algebras and trigonometries and things like that and just hated every minute of it.

BRINSON: Uh-huh. [softly laughing]

GILKEY: So I had a history course under William Turner, and it was the most fascinating course I’ve ever seen, so I thought, well, I’d kind of like this lifestyle.

BRINSON: Now, did you know him as a member of your church at all?

GILKEY: No, I became a member of that church after the fact.

BRINSON: Okay.

GILKEY: But I met him in ninety-five and we developed a relationship. And I went to talk to him one day and I said, “I think I’d like to be interested in being a history major. What are the steps I need to take?” And so he set me down and we talked for about thirty minutes. And he talked about his experiences in school teaching and his experiences with people; and I thought, “Well, hey, that’s what, that’s what I want to do.” So from then on I changed my major. Went to Murray State after I graduated from the community college. Didn’t like it there because I was so far—I wasn’t far away from home, but I was away from home. I knew my heart was in Hopkinsville. I always want to know what’s going on here and when I’m not, I just go crazy. So I enrolled at Murray State and dropped out of Murray State after the semester was over, and decided to enroll at Austin Peay and get a job here and commute back and forth every day. That way, I could be closer to home and still be a member of the Christian County Historical Society and know what was going on here. I became a member of Liberty Christian Church three years ago today. I was baptized . . .

BRINSON: Today is quite a day, isn’t it? [laughter—Gilkey] His thirty-seventh wedding anniversary and . . .

GILKEY: Right. I think that’s kind of ironic. But anyway, uh, three years ago today I was baptized. I was never a part of the church family, and so I went to William one day, I said—or he came to me and he said, “Would you like to come to my church?” I said, “Well, sure.” And it was Easter Sunday in, of ninety-seven. I went to the church and was just overwhelmed at the closeness of the church family. So I thought, “This is the place for me.” And he, uh, helped me receive the Sunday School Superintendent role, and I think that’s helped me with my public speaking. And it’s just been a great . . .

BRINSON: . . . other kinds of skills.

GILKEY: Right.

BRINSON: I wonder if you can recall for me, when you were growing up and going to school, uh, do you remember there being much black history in the curriculum?

GILKEY: No. I think my earliest memory would probably be when I attended Booker T. Washington school in the fifth grade. I think that, that’s where I generally started to learn about Brown versus Board of Education and the 1964 civil rights act. But that’s probably my earliest memory, is probably fifth grade.

BRINSON: Someone must have told you a little bit about who Booker T. was.

GILKEY: Right. Yeah.

BRINSON: How about after that, in high school or college? You mentioned that you’d had a course.

GILKEY: Right. I was just involved in historical things and my interest just topped it off in high school. And I enrolled in advanced history courses and advanced placement, and they’ve generally covered the waterfront of American history and African-American history. But it wasn’t until last semester, as I told you, I had the African American Studies course that I genuinely became interested in African-American studies. I think there’s a world of knowledge to be learned. I like to be a part of it.

BRINSON: Well, there’s a lot of interesting research going on now.

GILKEY: Right.

BRINSON: I want to jump back into the nineteenth century here. But maybe you know this about this area. I was thinking, as William talked about free men of color, uh, was, was this area part of the underground railroad at all? Was there any of that kind of activity that people had begun to . . .

GILKEY: I believe it was but I’m not really, really sure on it. I don’t have very much factual information on it, but I’ve always heard that there was some activity of the underground railroad here in Hopkinsville. William could probably tell you a lot more.

BRINSON: Okay. I know Mr. Whitney told me yesterday that they thought there might have been but they haven’t yet really been able to document anything significant. Okay. Well, anything else that I haven’t asked questions about that you thought . . .

GILKEY: Not that I can really think of, except for the effects of World War II and how integration really took a, took an increase.

BRINSON: Well, and that’s something I wanted to ask both of you. We talked very briefly about the influence of Fort Campbell on . . .

GILKEY: Right.

BRINSON: . . . the Hopkinsville area, and I don’t know what that is. Do you know enough to be able to talk with me about that?

GILKEY: Yeah, it brought numerous, I mean, industries, it brought population. I think there was a lot more integration in Hopkinsville after Fort Campbell came because of the effects of World War II and the role they played in fighting that war. I think that the African Americans were scared of, of American attitude as a whole after World War II because of the effects of World War I. I think that they thought integration was going to take, more integration was going to take place after World War I but it didn’t. I think—they stood guard but the effects of Communism really took its toll.

BRINSON: But, of course it was really President Truman who, …

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE ONE.

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE TWO

BRINSON: . . . many communities and among many historians now, you’re beginning to see the argument that it really was the, uh, the World War II experience for black soldiers, who upon returning back to their communities in the South, you know, they’d seen a little bit of the world and they’d seen a society where things were different . . .

GILKEY: Right.

BRINSON: . . . than they were back home; and that it was some of that unrest that really began to kind of build culturally a whole movement . . .

GILKEY: Right. I agree.

BRINSON: . . . for civil rights. And I wonder, you know, in a community like this, especially having Fort Campbell as close by, you know, how that might have played out?

GILKEY: Hmm. [pause]

BRINSON: But we don’t know yet, you know, how many, how many Hopkinsville black soldiers came back to Hopkinsville.

GILKEY: Right. Yeah, I’d be—I’d be sure to tell you.

BRINSON: Uh, the other thing I wanted to ask you is: somewhere I read in the last day or so in one of the newspapers that Fort Campbell is actually the largest military base in the country?

GILKEY: I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. I know that’s a lot of land . . .

BRINSON: I’m not sure that’s true. Well, maybe in terms of land. I always think about number of people . . .

GILKEY: Right.

BRINSON: . . . stationed there more as the indicator there. But you haven’t ever heard that?

GILKEY: Right. I think one of the elements that the One Hundred and First Airborne Division really took part in was the Arkansas event in which Eisenhower sent the troops . . .

BRINSON: Little Rock and the . . . uh-hmm.

GILKEY: I think that changed some of the African Americans’ opinion on Fort Campbell.

BRINSON: Well, talk about that. African Americans where? In the community?

GILKEY: In the community. I think so. I think they saw what Fort Campbell was doing for the development of civil rights, and I think that the African Americans felt more at ease with Fort Campbell coming to the area.

BRINSON: Well Fort Campbell also, as I understand it, opened up new jobs for the black community.

GILKEY: Right. That’s—when I mentioned industry, that’s what I was referring to.

BRINSON: Civilian positions.

GILKEY: Right. And I think--since the Great Depression, I think it was hard for African Americans to obtain equal opportunities. We really didn’t see equal opportunities until the Equal Opportunities Act was passed, I think in 1980.

BRINSON: Do you think we have achieved all that we can at this point in time?

GILKEY: I don’t know. I was passed out a questionnaire about affirmative action and how I felt on it. The way I think is that every man, woman, whichever color you are, should have equal opportunities based upon your capabilities rather than any, any race, color, you know, gender. So I don’t know. I really couldn’t answer that question.

BRINSON: Do you think most people in Hopkinsville would concur with you on that?

GILKEY: I’d be afraid to say.

BRINSON: Okay.

GILKEY: How would you—how do you feel about the equal opportunities and the affirmative action? I was telling her I was passed out a questionnaire on how I felt about it, and I told her that the way I feel is that everyone should have an equal opportunity based on their capabilities. I don’t think that one person should get something just because he or she’s a woman or he or she’s black or white.

TURNER: I agree.

GILKEY: And she was asking me what I thought the community thought about it. Would they think the same thing I do? But I really don’t know.

TURNER: We have a lot of rednecks and we have a number of African Americans who are hyped out.

GILKEY: I would agree.

TURNER: We have a whole lot of people who have an axe to grind. We have a whole lot of people who don’t want peace. They want opportunity but many of them, of both races, want it handed to them.

GILKEY: I think most people—well, some people—are afraid of change.

BRINSON: Have you seen, uh, any of the new immigrant populations into this area in the last few years, like the Mexican migrant or . . .?

TURNER: I’ve seen them in the farm work scene. I’ve seen them at Walmart. That is their Mecca. As far as having any contact with any of them, no I haven’t.

BRINSON: Well I’m, I’m asking kind of a global question here, but in some communities where the Mexican migrant—Lexington, for example—have been coming in in large numbers, there are developing some real tensions between young African- American men and the young Latino migrants. And . . .

TURNER: Do the African Americans see them as a challenge to work opportunities or making money?

BRINSON: To some degree that’s fair but also, uh--not in terms of the horse farms, which is where they are principally in the Bluegrass--but in some of the other, the construction trades, uh, hotel businesses and whatnot. And there’s some feeling that, you know, there’s going to be a powder keg there some point in time.

TURNER: It’s bound to happen if we get more and more of them in here. I have through the years known people and been friends with people from California, and I’ve been amazed at the ill feeling between the Americans in California and the Mexicans. In many instances, it’s equal to the poor relations that we have here. It’s just mankind’s basic inability to accept and understand others and get along.

BRINSON: We talked about two questions, and then I’m going to stop this. But I wanted to ask you, William, when you came back, is there any evidence of underground railroad activity here in the nineteenth century?

TURNER: No. No. And I’ve looked for that.

BRINSON: Okay.

TURNER: I conducted a lot of research in African-American history, and my greatest source—other than the personal interview—has been our old city business directories which date from 1897. And, interestingly enough, into the thirties all of the African Americans had a lower case ‘c’ following their name. That’s been invaluable to me in knowing who among the African-American community were involved in the trades and the businesses and the professions. Of course, today that would be strictly taboo. So we have stricken an opportunity—you know, a hundred years from now they look at a directory, you won't be able to tell, if you’re trying to concentrate on—I’m not recommending everybody do that, but I’m just saying there was a source that’s so helpful.

BRINSON: I’ve used that too. It is helpful.

TURNER: I’ve been able to go through those directories and compile a list of the occupations and professions and businesses that African Americans were in, and have got the names and the offices and the dates when people were elected or appointed to political office. Now, has someone made available to you a history, a local black history and a history of the Human Relations Commission?

BRINSON: We’ve talked about the Human Relations Commission with a couple of people.

TURNER: Now Bernard Standard, the Executive Director, will have a history of that organization from its founding in sixty-three up through ninety-nine.

BRINSON: That’s the date! Okay, 1963.

TURNER: When F.E. Whitney—I mean, F.E. Lackey was mayor. And then they also have a chronological list, year by year, of significant milestones in local black history.

BRINSON: Okay. And the gentleman’s name again was Bernard . . .

TURNER: Bernard Standard. And he’s been Executive Director since 1990, one of the longest tenured ones to hold that office, back to sixty-three.

BRINSON: Okay. I’ll give him a call. Well is there anything else that you’d like to add? We may continue this at another time.

TURNER: All right. We’ve covered politics and the church. We haven’t talked about the businesses and professions.

BRINSON: No. No. Save that.

TURNER: All right. I was real interested in one of the references in the city, old city business directories, at the number of African-American women engaged in the practice of midwifery.

BRINSON: Well, actually, when you mentioned, uh, free men of color in terms of the discussion about churches, uh, I was thinking at that point—not entirely relevant to what we’re talking about today—but I was interested to know if any research had been done into the number of free women of color and--because Suzanne ( ), a historian, wrote a book called Free, Free Women of Color of Petersburg, Virginia, probably about fifteen years old now. And it’s one of the few studies, but what she actually determined in her research was that there probably were more free women of color, at least in that community, than there were in, than there were men. And it was largely because they were—it was somehow easier for the community to handle. And they were women who had been freed--there may have been intimate kinds of relationships there with white slave owners--and they had businesses in the community and they did fairly well.

TURNER: I could give you some examples of some right here. We haven’t talked about local medical care—that’s a whole chapter. We haven’t talked about Ted Poston.

BRINSON: Right. And there’s a new biography I saw in the library about . . .

TURNER: Jacqueline ( )’s personal friend. I’ve worked with her a long time.

BRINSON: And we haven’t talked about Belle Hooks.

TURNER: No, that’s right. We haven’t.

BRINSON: Who, who’s very outspoken about how racist she thinks Kentucky is, and her growing up here in Hopkinsville. Do you know that name?

GILKEY: No.

BRINSON: Belle—it’s not her real name. That’s her pen name but it’s Gloria Watkins.

GILKEY: No, don’t ( ).

BRINSON: She grew up in Hopkinsville.

TURNER: She graduated Hop’town High, I think. Don’t hold me to that but I think she did. I’ve read a number of things she’s written and she is very plainspoken.

BRINSON: So there are a lot of other things we could do but let’s save that to another day. But thank you—both of you—this has been . . .

END OF INTERVIEW