Oral History Interview with Selvin Butts

MAXINE RAY: This is Maxine Ray, conducting an interview for the Civil Rights Project, sponsored by the Kentucky Historical Oral History Commission. I’m interviewing Mr. Selvin Butts here at his home in Bowling Green. Today’s date is March the 21st, 2000. And we’re going to talk about the Civil Rights movement in Warren County. Now, RAY. Butts, would you give me your full name please?

SELVIN BUTTS: Selvin Harding Butts, Senior.

RAY: Okay, and, ah, what’s your parents’ names?

BUTTS: My father was James Thomas Butts, and my mother was Olive Butts.

RAY: Okay, what’s your date of birth?

BUTTS: February the 6th, 1933.

RAY: I want to talk a little about your education, where’d you go to school at?

BUTTS: I went to, uh, State Street High school. I also went to church there.

RAY: What, ah, was your occupation?

BUTTS: I’m retired. I retired from the ( ) Corporation.

RAY: Ah, do you, ah, belong to any civil rights or civil organizations or anything?

BUTTS: Well, we don’t have a chapter now, but I did belong to the NAACP, for, ever since I was in high school. I started out in the youth chapter. And I remained in the NAACP up until a couple years ago, because we didn’t have a chapter then. Uh, even when we did have a chapter in Bowling Green, I still sent my membership in to the National—that’s something I’ve always done, because I believe in the NAACP.

RAY: Did you hold any offices in that organization?

BUTTS: Yes. I first, as an adult--when I first came in the adult chapter, Reverend J. E. Jones was President. And I was Publicity Chairman for the chapter. I’ve also served as Political Action Chairman, and I’ve served as President, Vice President. I’ve served as Vice President under, maybe two different--two or three different Presidents. Then I served--after Willy Madison left Bowling Green--I um, took over as President; but in all the material I sent out I was Interim President, because I knew that there’s no such thing in the NAACP as Interim President. But I would do that that because I knew when the election time came I was not going to run: because at the same time I was Chairman of the Human Rights Commission, and I didn’t feel that I should hold two offices in similar organizations.

RAY: How big was the leadership when you were, when it was active here?

BUTTS: We had, uh, I guess we had sixty—from sixty to a hundred members during that, during that time.

RAY: Can you remember any of the, ah, cases or any particular case that you all worked on, or were there any?

BUTTS: Oh, yes. We had many.

RAY: You had many.

BUTTS: Um, one of the things that we worked on with the, with the Human Rights Commission, was the Open Housing Ordinance. Which, ah, was passed. Thomas Mitchell and I hired—our duty at the time was organizing people to go to City Hall to try to get it passed. Um, when we went to City Hall to meet with them, we filled City Hall. The, ah, meeting was taped. Hoping, I guess, that people would not come back. But when we went back we carried more people. We had them out on the sidewalks. Because we had so many people. Ah, the Ordinance was passed. And we had help in that Ordinance from people like William Natcher, and even the Mayor, Bob Brown, was for it. But the City Manager at that time, and I, I can’t remember his name, but he was deadly against it. And so was—like the other people in the City. But it was passed anyway, it was passed on the second round.

RAY: So this was a, ah, nonviolent demonstration?

BUTTS: Oh, yes, we had no, we had no problems then. Another thing that we worked on, was the—Years later, and at the time I was Interim President, was the, um, well. . .There was a magazine in Western called The Bowling Green Magazine. They put out an article about the KKK. And they were pitching the KKKs as an organization like the Kiwanis. So we had, I had a problem with that, and I wrote back to—I’m trying to think of the President of Western, I have it here (sound of paper rustling). . . Zachariah. I wrote him a letter, um, concerned about the article. And he invited me to a meeting. And there was Henry Tutino, Reverend Zachariah Nichols, and myself that was invited to the meeting; because I wrote a letter to all the churches, all the black churches in Bowling Green, and I asked them--asked the ministers, to write a letter to Dr. Zachariah, and I also sent a letter to them concerning this. There was only one minister that wrote a letter. This is the letter, you may want to read it sometime.

RAY: And you only had one response--?

BUTTS: But only one minister, Reverend Nichols, had written a letter to Dr. Zachariah, protesting the magazine. Ah, we did get some feedback; Dr. Zachariah, he worked with us and we had an apology in the next magazine. He also sent a letter to Henry Tutino, who was a member of the Human Rights Commission; and later was the, ah, Executive Director of the Human Rights Commission, who was also involved. We sent a letter to the Bates Company, and they, ah, looked at different magazines and papers and they grade them, and they were very upset about the letter. About the magazine--there are couple letters from that that you probably can look at, you know, at your leisure. But, ah, to show you what we did, I managed to keep those over the years. There’s some other things that. . . Well, during that time, we decided that we would try to get and open an anti-mask ordinance passed by the City.

RAY: Anti-Mask?

BUTTS: Anti-Mask Ordinance. And what that was that the KKKs could not march with masks on. That was the—would expose them. And we had many meetings, at the church now, which is downtown church, is that the name of it? Downtown, or?

RAY: State Street, fountain. . . ?

BUTTS: Where the State theatre used to be?

RAY: Fountain square?

BUTTS: Fountain Square Church, okay. We had meetings there, at the old church, which was in on Indianola, I believe it was, and uh. . . We met it to City Hall to try to get the ordinance passed. There were only two blacks that showed up, Howard Bailey and myself. So when Howard Bailey and I parked in front of the old Courthouse, go on down to City Hall, KKs were pulling up, they were getting out of their cars, and . . um, taking their guns off and putting them in their trunks, things like that. But it was passed that night because there were so many white citizens in Bowling Green that felt the same way that we did. They came to the meetings, and they were at City Hall, but only two blacks were there.

RAY: Well, did the KKK ever march on Bowling Green?

BUTTS: Oh, yeah, they had marched around the square with their masks on. If you can remember back, I think Linda Bird and some were arrested one time downtown, when they were marching and ( ) she was going to a sit-in. I think she had. . . some type of ( ). And ah, once the masks were taken off, I can’t remember them marching. Uh, . . . (papers rustling). There was, uh, an article here in the Western Herald that they, ah, they interviewed me the night before the, ah, Martin Luther King march. And at the time there was something on the TV concerning it. ( ) here’s this, the Klan, that ( ).

RAY: Oh, the Klan’s ( ) . . the NAACP. . . Oh my goodness. You said the interviewed you the night before the …

BUTTS: Yes, the …

RAY: The Civil Rights--uh-huh …

BUTTS: They interviewed me.

RAY: Before the--the night before the March.

BUTTS: Yes. This is the whole ( ).

RAY: How did the

BUTTS: ( )

RAY: Ooh! Well, the Marches that they had, were – in a, were there many blacks there protesting the march?

BUTTS: Oh, yes, there were people, you know, around the square. But, um, you know, we never did try to stop them from marching, because that’s their right. They have a right to march, just like we have the right to march. If they tried to stop their march, their marches would stop. And we wouldn’t have the right either. So they had the right to express the way they feel. And we never tried to fight that. But we felt that they shouldn’t be masked.

RAY: Oh my goodness.

BUTTS: And the, Open Housing, I mean the Anti-Mask Ordinance was passed. And there were no problems getting it passed. We’ve had some good people in this city to work with over the years; and I think that’s why, you know, we have been successful. But there’s one thing I’ve always felt about the KKKs, and that is that you always knew where they were coming from. We had so many other people that hide behind masks. You don’t know where they’re coming from; and they’re more dangerous than the people that are out in the open. The people that smile in your face and they’re plotting behind your back and against your organizations. Even some of those same people have joined our organization at some times to work against us, even within the organization. So, you know.

RAY: Even though the KKK were in masks ( ) what they did and what they were going to do?

BUTTS: Even I think I’m--Toby Pierce,( ) the leader or the Grand Dragon for this area--and his son hung himself in jail. And he even sent word to me, and asked me would I help him, try to find out, what had happened to his son. So, I think when you do things the right way, you get respect from people regardless ( ).

RAY: Is the Klan still active in the . . .?

BUTTS: Well, you don’t hear, I’m sure they are,

RAY: Uh-huh –

BUTTS: You don’t hear much, you know, about it locally, but I’m sure they are.

RAY: Mm-hmm. Do you, um – was there any trouble here about the, um, any kind of sit ins, or any kind of anything with restaurants and all, do you remember?

BUTTS: We had planned – that we—( ) held up quite a bit of money from the city, at one time, because we, we wanted fireman. We had no, we had no black firemen. And they would tell us that no fireman were put in--had put in applications. So we held the money up by, though the State Commissioner--State Human Rights Commission was the clearing agency for certain grants of money. And working with John Johnson, who was an employee of the State Commission--also John was president of the state NAACP. And we held the money up, and we met with the City Manger and all different ones, to discuss things that we wanted to do. Through this--holding the money up--we got three, uh, firemen, well, actually, we ended up with two. One could not pass the physical. But there were about thirty, I guess, that came down and Dr. Marksby and Chuck Neblitt , who was our Director of the Human Rights Commission at the time, worked with them on taking the test. On how to take the test. And out of the thirty, the names were given to them, out of the thirty only three showed up. And Doc and, ah, Chuck worked with them and those three passed the written test, but only, but one could not pass the physical. But there other two were hired by the City. Also, during that time, we were meeting, the city did not have a City Treasurer. And I asked Chuck Cook, “Why can’t we attempt to hire the City a black City Treasurer?” He said, “( ).” He found one, he hired one. . . and I think he stayed in Bowling Green a couple years. He was from, uh, up on the Eastern part of the United States. Um, also, we added more--a couple of police--had police added to the list. And, uh, all that was accomplished by us holding up the money. So sometimes I think you have to even embarrass people. But, uh, all those things came out. And we went on from there. We had a good City Manager. I think he’s always been fair. Um, before that, we had one that was terrible. I think Chuck’s been here about twenty-two years, and he’s always worked with, worked with us, and all organizations. I think ( ) Um, another thing ah, some things that we sent through was we had a problem with, ah, police harassments and things. And I have some ( ). Greg McKinney was president of the NAACP at the time. Greg McKinney was one of the best presidents that the NAACP has ever had. And if anything I give credit to ( ), and uh, Greg investigated all these different cases. Ah, all these police harassments ( ).

RAY: And what happened?

BUTTS: And , uh ( ).

RAY: That was a large number ( ).

BUTTS: Here is, ah, something where a black moved into a white neighborhood (phone rings) and he had a problem.

RAY: Did they have many, ah, incidents like this, where the families moving in, were there very many of those, or just …?

BUTTS: Oh, well, yes, there was, let’s see, I think Ron Lewis had a problem. He was a renter. He wasn’t buying, he was renting, and Ron Lewis had a problem ( ). Of course years, way back, and I think, I did--my granddaughter did something on David Kurtgow. ( ) You know he moved into an all-white neighborhood on Bardstown Road, he was the first black to move into that neighborhood. He moved right across from ( ), right out on Morgantown Road.

RAY: Oh.

BUTTS: But, ah I don’t know why I kept some of these things. Most all of these cases is Greg—Greg got those up, investigating here in Bowling Green--state lawyers, . .

RAY: Oh.

BUTTS: (papers rustling). This one here is really interesting.

RAY: What’s that?

BUTTS: Michael Hendricks. He was--he had to walk in the snow, in street clothes, and ( )

RAY: ( ) took him to jail--

BUTTS: They took him to jail. ( ). Greyhound ( ). And for a while they were following Greg around. They used to follow Greg.

RAY: Oh.. . Did they burn any crosses or anything in Greg’s yard?

BUTTS: No. No. But we were at a meeting one time ah, and passed this zoning ( ), and they came down and the police was throwing light on Greg’s car, they were ( ).

RAY: Now this was ( ) Patterson was the Mayor. . .

BUTTS: Right, Patterson was a good mayor. Patterson was very good. And I always ( ).

RAY: ( ). But now, are we still, are we still having any—problems, now? I know we still have problems, but are they as many or are there were?

BUTTS: Oh, not as many as there were then.

RAY: Uh huh, uh huh.

BUTTS: ( ).

RAY: Oh, a policeman was recommended--for this harassment?

BUTTS: The NAACP has done. . . a great job in Bowling Green. And I remember, seeing some material back many years ago, Dr. Z. K. Jones ( ), was in the NAACP back then, ( ).

RAY: Uh-huh.

BUTTS: And they had the largest chapter, they had over a hundred members.

RAY: Oh.

BUTTS: So that was the thing ( ). . . So, the NAACP has been active in Bowling Green for a long time.

RAY: I’m out of questions, so ( ) unless you’ve got something else to say?

BUTTS: During the, uh, ( ), nineteen, when Ron was President, during the last, it was nineteen seventy-five, and one of the things we worked on was, ah, educating our people concerning the political action, ah, voting. And, ah. . . We uh, had different, political education. . . ah, you know, we educated, we carried material out, we passed in the neighborhoods; and we also did a voter registration; we went from door to door, and we registered people. And, you know, at one time we could not do that in Bowling Green. And David West, filed a suit in federal court, that’s how ( ). . . . David West did quite a few good things in Bowling Green. People talk about that ( ), but they never talk about ( ). He didn’t make one mistake. You can do a hundred good things, people will talk about the one mistake ( ). Um, David West, like Marshall Green, ( ), always something. But you don’t hear those things, you just hear about the bad things.

RAY: Is David West still around?

BUTTS: David West is dead, he died a longtime ago. Now this photo is from—this is a state photo( ) in Bowling Green.

RAY: Oh. NAACP?

BUTTS: Seventy-five. And if you notice the ( ) . . . we shall tell our children who are blind, ( ).

RAY: Oh, that is good.

BUTTS: It was because of, the different problems that we were having, not just in Bowling Green. Bowling Green and the state of Kentucky. And, uh, I think Doc’s the one that came up with that for the State. ( ) for the children who were blind; and designed that cover for the program. There were problems with, um, trying to get black state policemen and things like that. And that’s supposed to be, uh, that year were working on some of those problems, not just local agendas, but state-wide.

RAY: State-wide, mm-hmm.

BUTTS: That’s what we were doing. But we had, we’ve had some good people to help sponsor, to help give money like, Pepsi-Cola, based on some ( ). I think, ( ). . . . But um, we got different people come in to speak. Some of the people we’ve brought in we would have never been able to bring in, had we not had people like Pepsi-Cola, ( ) to sponsor those people. And, ah, we’ve brought some. . . very fine people ( ). We’ve brought some very important people here. We’ve you know ( ) and we’ve had Shirley Chisholm here and ( ), and, ah, ( ) ( )

RAY: Do you remember the man’s name at the Pepsi-Cola company then?

BUTTS: No, I don’t remember. ( ) He, ah, they sponsored, ( ).. . . lived in Bowling Green. Because we couldn’t get them. His wife spoke in Franklin. And, ah, ( ) she was great. We lost a lot by John Johnson moving out of the area. John was in Louisville, but John worked with us, and John would come to Bowling Green and work with us. At one time there were black teachers that weren’t getting all the--let’s say they don’t have any resumes from black teachers and things like that. And John came in , we met John, Dr. ( ), we met. And he said he would share ( ) ( ) and he was going to the Board of Education and do something about it. And luckily we had some names of some of the people who had good resumes, and we turned those over to John, and when he met with the School Board he had the names. So they hired about three of them. Of course we worked with, um, you know, when the school was integrated, that was a big problem. Yeah, yeah. They had some clashes out there, at the school. And they were a group called Black Concerned Citizens. There were five of us. Charles Caver, Lloyd Burnham, ( ), ( ); and we had the school board ( ) And we suggested certain things ( ). Um, one of the things we suggested was that at the time they needed a--well they had a vacancy on the school board . And we were recommended a black to take the ( ) They asked us if we could come up with a name. But first before we did that ( ), because ( ) one of the board members, they had umpired or refereed basket ball and football ( ) ( ) ( ). So then they asked us to do the grant. ( ) ( ) ( ). Now Henry--you had to know Henry. Henry was very outspoken. And made himself. ( ). But they did not accept him. They said, let us ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ). They also recommended at that point ( ) as assistant principal. And I listened to that trailblazer saying, ( ). Well the way they explained it, it was like Graham, Dr. Graham was an angel ( ). And he insisted he would have that job ( ). If he owed any white person for that job, he wouldn’t do it. So the board agreed, Dr. Graham did not want it. He was recommended by us. And the board accepted Dr. Graham then ( ) And the part in there where he was praised Dr. Graham for causing him to get the job; ( ) he did it ‘cause he had to do it. So the Board joined in, not because he wanted to do it. And. . I had a problem with some of these things ( ), and …could you shut that off?

RAY: And how many years have you on the Human Rights …?

BUTTS: I served over twenty years. And, ah, I thought after that time—there was only one other person I know of that served any longer or as long, that was Thomas ( ). And Thomas ( ) was taken …

END SIDE ONE TAPE ONE

BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE

RAY: Now you were telling me you ( ) a house?

BUTTS: ( ) ( ) ( ). I served on a little bit of everything. I ( )

RAY: ( )

BUTTS: Well I was on the Red Cross Board, I was ( ) area. There was, uh, before we had time, like the Housing Authority now, we had a council and things like that, they didn’t have that. They were bringing their problems to. . . ‘cause I served as advisor for the Delafield area--that’s for sports. I was the coach there I coached ( ) ( ) I was president of the ( ). ( )( ) ( ). My union, you know, I was an officer in the union--( ) International Association of Machinists and that, um, I’ve ( )—you know it’s kind of hard to keep up with all the different things. but, ah, most of those that I stayed on a long time, like the NAACP, Human Rights Commission, those were the ( ) and worked with. And from time to time we had many, uh, black citizens concerned in the community things would come up and, uh, we would feel, you know that we needed to work that way uh, where we could use all our energy and time on certain, certain things. I think we’ve accomplished a lot with different people, some of the people that I enjoyed working with were, uh, Charles Taylor and Ron Lewis, ( ) guy to work with. There was another fellow named Ron Davis, he was the head of Big Brothers and Sisters. And Ron Davis, he worked with the Youth at ( ) when David--he would have to go out there and represent them, you know when they would do ( ) things like that, he would represent them. Ron stayed here for maybe four or five years, and finally left and went to UK and was active at UK. He’s an attorney now. There were a lot of good people. And all the people, uh, lot of good people who come into Bowling Green to ( ). Howard Bailey lived ( ) was a really good person. I remember when Ernestine didn’t want to appoint me back to the Human Rights Commission. That was after ( ). He didn’t want me back, he said I had too much influence—I’d been on so long I had too much influence on the others. And Howard Bailey and a lady named Annie Archibald, she was, ah, president of the Women’s Political Caucus, they went to ( ) and told me that if he didn’t put me back; and Annie said, “If you don’t put him back”—he was going to run for—he was already Mayor, but he was going to run for, uh, not council, but commissioner. Said, “I will see that you are defeated ( ) ( ).” But ah--Howard has been very outspoken. And Howard sent my nomination in last year for the—State Human Rights Commission had a, it was an anniversary, I think it was a ( ) ( ) but anyway they was having people nominated for the State Human Rights Commission Hall of Fame; and Howard submitted my name. And I have the plaque up on the wall now. And I received a plaque and all, but I wasn’t going ( ) in the Hall of Fame, and Howard said, “Well, you shouldn’t feel bad, because all that went in were dead, and you don’t want to die!” (laughs}

RAY: ( )

BUTTS: ( ) that was some outstanding people that were in there like Whitney Young--some of those people so, I felt good just being in the class ( ). and, uh, some of those people, like Reverend King, was nominated, ( ), and as far as I know they were the ones that was there, and ( ) and quite a few people from Logan County.

RAY: ( )

BUTTS: But I told Howard, a lot of the things that you were writing that I did, you were right there with me, you know, you were doing them too. ( ) I always admired Howard. ( ) did a lot of work ( ) ( ) as far as the college chapter, you know, NAACP, things like that. I don’t know if they have a chapter – do they have a chapter on campus now?

RAY: ( ).

BUTTS: At one time they had a chapter on campus, and we had a youth chapter, a regular chapter, you know we were able to give big scholarships out. Ah, one year, I think, we had two of our young people that competed nationally, ( ) went to the University of Kentucky. And ( ) daughter was the other one’s ( ). And they competed with students, you know, their parents had belonged to the NAAPC, or they had to be ( ). And they competed all over the United States, they ( ). And you know that’s wonderful when you can get two out of a city that could, you know win, a scholarship. Just think of all the thousands that ( ). But, I don’t know when we’ll ever get things going, ( ) tried. And the state president did not ( ). And he only organized another chapter because the people in Bowling Green wanted another chapter. And they said they would be willing to go into ( ) chapter. That’s when we had the other chapter, and the other chapter had been taken over by people ( ). They really didn’t know the problems, and they weren’t addressing the problems. You know, there’s more to these organizations just having banquets. You’re not doing anything, you may as well not—you know, not ( ). And we still have problems. We need to be working in a group, to solve the problems. I had someone who, say to me, he was talking about the people who—we call it Housing Authority now—at one time we called it Housing Projects—tell me about someone who still lived in the Housing projects after all these years. And I told him, I said, “You know, when we had the Open Housing Ordinance passed, most of the people went up there to fight for open housing lived in the Housing Projects. Some of those people knew that they would never get out,” I said, “but they went up there because of people like you, that could get out of the ( ), who could afford it. I said, “So you owe them something.” That’s what I’m talking about and ( ). And later they realized it – but. you know, and it’s true. You find most of the people that really fight for change, are people that –would never really benefit from ( ). You know, I know some people living there now, that went out there--you know, they weren’t going to move anywhere else, they couldn’t afford it. They didn’t have the jobs they could do ( ),maybe they were thinking about their children, or thinking about people that could go. And we have to realize that as people no ( ). We have to appreciate those people, that really get out there and do, because most of the people that you find in certain, on certain levels, they’re not going to speak out. Ah, there were some people on the commission when I was there--the Human Rights Commission--who were school teachers—and they would speak out against other things, but they would not speak out against the school, because they were afraid of their jobs. But they were good people, they would speak out on other things, but they would not speak out about that because they were afraid of their jobs. And, you know, maybe I can’t blame them, ‘cause you know, they’d gone to school for that, and, ah, they knew the jobs weren’t that plentiful. So you have to use other people to speak out for those things, because they’re not going to. I know there were—one man, who was on our Commission, he was ( ), he was not black, but he wouldn’t say anything in the meeting; but when we come out, he would call me up, and tell me what we must do. And he said, “I don’t have many years before my retirement, I don’t want to mess it up.” And I can’t blame him you know, you can’t blame him for that. But he would at least tell you things that were going on; things where we could do a better job

RAY: Well, I’m going to thank you for letting me interview you.

BUTTS: Glad to.

END TAPE ONE SIDE TWO

END OF INTERVIEW.