Oral History Interview with Raoul Cunningham

CUNNINGHAM: My mother had a policy - my father died when I was young - my mother had a policy, we could shop downtown, but we would never eat downtown; because the restaurants that would allow you to eat, you had to stand to eat. And her philosophy was "I'm not going to pay my hard earned money to be treated as a second class citizen: who are going to stand and eat." Now at that time Louisville was primarily segregated. The transportation system, the public bus system was not segregated. The downtown area, you could shop in all stores, but you could not try on clothes. So therefore, if I shopped at Rhodes or Martins in those days I could not try on a pair of shoes. So we shopped at the stores that allowed African-Americans to try on the clothes. In those days it was Levis for men, ah, Selman's and Bick's for women.

CUNNINGHAM: Segregation made me angry, simply because I was denied what I consider to be a right. They didn't lower the prices for the garments to blacks. We were charged the same price that everyone else was. It made you feel less than a human being. It was a custom that we became used to in order to survive, or at least our parents became used to it. I think that was one of the things we rejected: was, "Okay you took it, now is the time that we might be able to break the barriers down." As you've always had that generation gap. Ah, the first day that we were arrested, the adult chapter had asked us not to sit-in that day. They didn't think that they were prepared to cope with it, but we were. And we decided that we would march to Stewarts, and that particular day there were twenty-two of us; a combination of students from Central and Male high school. we were arrested. The adults were a little bit miffed at us, but that broke eventually - see that is the first day that we were arrested, and five of us were arrested that day. We were in high school - all under the age of eighteen; so therefore, there were no bonds to be paid. That allowed the adults to raise some money in case bonds had to be paid. So you know --

CUNNINGHAM: There was not a period of time--you know, we didn't go through that period of being angry--they immediately once they realized That we were down there--and they kn--we all knew we were going--it was really funny that morning, my mother told me, "You've got to make some decisions," because we had been down there the week before, and we had closed Stewarts every day. And she advised, "Stewarts are not going to let you continue to close them. There is going to come a time when you--when they are going to arrest you. Are you prepared for that. Do you think you can continue to take the non-violent pledge?" "Yes." We went down, we were arrested, there were some who couldn't, and therefore they did not participate with us. As I said that day there were eighteen of us, the next day there were about forty-five of us. The next day seventy-five, and we built up to as many as three hundred and fifty people demonstrating.

BRINSON: And what do you mean close Stewart's?

CUNNINGHAM: Stewart's was a department store. They had a restaurant in the basement. We would go to the restaurant and close it down. We had enough bodies to place at every door-entrance into the restaurant. As we began to grow we then could take on the movie theatres and Blue Boar, and by the third week of demonstrations we could take on the entire downtown area where we could close it. And that was our after school activity, from February through March, into April. Easter was coming up, CORE and NAACP adult chapters got together with the youth, and we decided we would try an economic boycott; and our slogan became "Nothing New for Easter." And it was successful. We did decide not to demonstrate during Derby. And it was then that we began to get some pledges from the local politicians that they would support a Public accommodations Ordinance in Louisville.

CUNNINGHAM: Yes, Male.

BRINSON: How did the other students respond to your activism?

CUNNINGHAM: The white students? Very negatively. I can recall the first day after--the first day we were arrested, we were released to our parents. I went on to school to finish up that day, and I was on the school newspaper staff. On the blackboard they had written, "Welcome back Jailbird." When I think about my days at Male, they were good days because it taught me so many lessons; but when I graduated I did not want to go and I would not go to an integrated college. My grades fell as a result of my sit-ins, and they dropped from A's and B's, to D's, E's, and F's. And thinking about, although Male was integrated, it was still very much segregated. We had our section of the cafeteria; they had theirs. It was not a good experience in terms of education, but it was a great experience in terms of teaching you how to deal with society.