Oral History Interview with Georgia Davis Powers

POWERS: I first recognized there was a difference being made because of the color of one's skin in the early thirties when I was very young. And there was a white girl who lived in my neighborhood, ah, who played with me; but yet we went to different schools. And I thought that was strange. And that was when I first learned that there was a difference being made in the community because of the color of one's skin. And then, as I grew up as a teenager having been living in Louisville, when I went to get a job at a Five and Dime store on Fourth Street--I was hired and I was told that I could serve colored people, but they could not stand at the counter and eat. This was just a hot dog stand with root beer and hot dogs. And I thought, "Well, that was strange, they could buy the food, but they can't stay and eat at the counter." I thought, "I'm not going to tell anybody they can't stand there because if they pay for it, they could eat where they want to." Well, I knew I was not going to last very long on that job, because I didn't tell anybody. So one day the physics teacher at Central high school came in and he came over and he saw me, and I asked him if he'd like a hot dog or a root beer; and he said, "Yes." And I served him. And he drank it--the pop--and he got--and I saw the supervisor looking. And after he left she came over and told me to come to the office at the end of the day. I knew it wasn't payday, so I thought about it, and I said, "Oh, they are getting ready to fire me." And so I went to the office right then and told them that I was quitting, but I didn't like it. I knew it was going on and I always wondered what could be done about it, and in my young mind I couldn't think of anything to do about it because …

POWERS: There were people in the neighborhood who were getting calls from my father's job, asking if he was white or black. White or colored they called it at that time. And they were told, "We don't know you will have to call their home and find out." And of course, they never called. And so there was a problem there because for five years they thought my father was white, and they had given him a "a white man's job" enameling bathtubs. But one of the workers saw him one day with a car full of little colored children, and went back and told it. And they got together and said, "They were not going to work with him any longer because he had a colored family." So it got to the President of the company, and that is American Radiator and Standard Sanitary. You see American Standard on all this bathroom equipment. And so the President called them together, and he said, "I understand there is a rumor going around that some of you don't want to work with Ben Montgomery. So those who don't want to work with him you stand over here, but I want to tell you: if you stand over here you can pick up your pay check today. And those who are willing to work with him can stand on the other side." So he worked there forty-two years and never had any more problems after that. So I use that very often because if a leader stands up and makes a decision, the workers, or the constituents will follow whatever the leader says. Whether it's the president of a company, the president of an institution, or the president of a country or whatever. You set the tone, and very often I think about governors of a state, of this state, who could have done a lot more than they did, if they had not been worrying about getting reelected and that kind of thing.

POWERS: But segregation was a bad thing, because you could not even go down town to shop and go in the rest room and use the rest room. And you could not eat unless you were walking down the street eating the sandwich, which was so rude and so crude: to have to walk down the street to eat. And you just felt humiliated when you walked in a store to buy a sandwich, knowing that you could not sit down and everybody else was sitting down. So it was very humiliating. And then when I became sixteen I wanted to get an operator’s license to drive. I went to the Courthouse, the young lady asked me the different question that you normally asked, your name, address and so forth, then she said, "Race?" I said to her,” What does race have to do with driving a car?" See I was sensitive to this. And she said, "Well it is down here, and I have to put it down; so you put whatever you want down. And one of the first bills I introduced when I was elected to the Senate, was to eliminate race from operator’s license. That's how discrimination affects young people. See it stayed in my mind all those years--all those years. And that was the reason that I worked for public accommodations because I quit a job because they told me I couldn't serve colored people, and it was very humiliating.

POWERS: A bill had been introduced by the legislator who represented the West End, Norbert Bloom, ah, on public accommodations, prohibiting discrimination in hotels, restaurants and so forth. Of course, in going to Frankfort we found that many of the legislators were opposed to it. So that's when we decided with Frank Stanley, Jr., who was the son of the owner of the Louisville Defender, the black newspaper. We organized a group called AOCR, which was an acronym for Allied Organizations for Civil Rights. And that group was made up of representatives from different civil rights organizations like NAACP, The Louisville Urban League, the black churches, some few white churches, ministers and other civic leaders; and we decided to have a march on Frankfort to urge the legislators to vote for this public accommodations bill. We invited Dr. Martin Luther King and Jackie Robinson to be our speakers. And by Reverend A.D. Williams King, having moved to Louisville, pastoring a church here, Dr. King was accessible. He was--his brother was able to--he was emissary and he brought his--he was able to bring his brother here. And a friend, she was Lucretia Ward, she and I ran the office for AOCR, and we organized with the Stanleys and the others the March on Frankfort. And that particular day, it was very cold, snowy. And we picked Dr. King up here at the airport and transported him to Frankfort. When we got there it was just a--just a big crowd. They said more than ten thousand people, and I am sure there were. But Dr. King spoke, and Jackie Robinson spoke, Peter, Paul and Mary were there singing folk songs. After the speeches were over we went in to see the Governor. Now this particular Governor I had worked on his campaign and helped him to get elected in 1963. However, ah, being new in politics everyone who worked in the office was given a job in Frankfort except me. Nobody told me that I was su--I should get a job. And when I went into the office with Dr. King and Jackie Robinson, his office manager opened the door and she was one I had worked with here in Louisville in his campaign. And she said to me, "Georgia I am surprised at you." I said, "Yes, I am sure you are. And I'm surprised at the Governor that he gave everybody a job but me." so we went on and Dr. King and Jackie Robinson talked to the Governor. The Governor was very polite, he didn't come out to meet the people, but he was very polite, and he smiled and he was going to do what he could; and he was going to try to get the legislature to vote for it. However, the bill was defeated. But in two years time it gave us time to regroup, to go out into the community and build up support all over the state with legislators; so that when it came back in 1966 we were stronger, and we had more support for it, and it did pass in 1966.

POWERS: Oh, it was exciting, yes, it was very exciting.

BRINSON: Tell me a little bit more about that.

POWERS: Well, first of all it was not easy to do because it was in February in Louisville. We did not have the flood walls, and the water was rising--the Ohio River was rising, and we had an office at Third and Main and water was in the basement. We had no electricity the last two weeks before the March, and Luther Ward and I worked with ah--with ah gas lights and auxiliary heat. But we got the job done, so it was not easy and it was very exciting, my brother, who is now an Alderman in Montgomery, who has a funeral home, he ah, used his limousine, and of course, he and I went to the airport and picked Dr. King up, and Dr. Robinson and took them to Frankfort. And that was the first time I had met Dr. King.

BRINSON: And when you arrived in Frankfort and saw all ...

POWERS: All those people?

BRINSON: Yeah.

POWERS: Yeah.

BRINSON: How did you feel?

PPOWERS: I felt like we were successful to that point. At the same time Briefing Dr. King that it was almost going to be impossible to pass the bill at this time, because we didn't have enough support in the legislature. But I briefed him from here to--or from Louisville to Frankfort as we were riding. And told him the position of the Governor, and just, you know, made him aware of the climate in Kentucky at the time.

POWERS: Ah, one of the first bills I introduced in the Senate was Open Housing Bill. And my seat-mate, who was an attorney from Paducah, Tom Garret said to me, "You'll never pass that." And I said, "Well, watch me. I just got there, I don't even know the ropes yet, don't even know how to draft a bill; but you know, I just put up that front anyway. And it so happens that bill went into his com--the committee that he Chaired, Judiciary Committee. And every time I'd ask him, "Tom, when are you going to get my bill out of your committee?" He'd say, “Every time I bring it up I lose a quorum. I can't get out." I said, "But you will." The most important bill to most of those men in that session was Daylight Saving Time. It was all they were concerned about. The ones in the rural areas talked about how the cows wouldn't give the right milk in the right amount because of changing of time. When they came to me and asked me what I thought about time, I said, "I'm not concerned about time, I am concerned about open housing. Prohibiting discrimination in selling and leasing property; that people should be able to buy where they can afford." Well, when my seat-mate found that the opp--he was for it--for daylight saving time--when he found that the opposition had nineteen votes opposed to Daylight Saving time--that's one-half the Senate. He had eighteen votes, but he didn't have mine. So you see how that one--how important that--I tell young people that: "One vote is so important." That one vote. So he came to me and he said, "If I get your bill out of the committee, will you vote with us?" I said, "I don't know--you have to get it out with the expression that it should pass, because that will give impetus to the bill once it gets to the floor." So the very next morning he met me at the Capitol door, and he said, "Got your bill out of committee." I said, "Oh great Tom." I said, "Let's check at the Senate office--Senate Clerk's office." And we did. Then we brought it out with the expression that it should pass. "Now you going to vote with me?" I said, "Not yet." "What's the matter?" I said, "You take this roll call sheet, everybody that you got committed to vote for your bill--Daylight Savings Time--you check them off and get them committed to vote for mine when it hits the floor." Oh, boy he snatched the paper and took off. About two hours later he came back with all the commitments. Well, his bill came up first that week for a vote and of course, it tied nineteen--nineteen. Well, a lot of the legislators came to me and said, "You said you didn't care what time it was, you need to change your vote 'cause you are going to make it bad for Wendell." He's President of the Senate and he's going to have to break the tie. I said, "Better to be bad for him than for me, my commitment stands." So Wendell did have to break the tie, and he voted for Daylight Savings Time. Then a few days later Open Housing Bill hits the floor. I got up and I was just speaking on you know, why we should vote for it. Finally Tom pulled my coat, and he said, "Georgia, sit down before you kill the bill." So I just blew the passage of the bill. And I had the roll call, I was checking as they voted, and that bill passed twenty-seven to three, with eight abstentions. That is how big it passed in the Senate. Then of course, it went to the House, and we had to do the same thing. Make sure you get it and there were two other African-American legislators and with Norbert Bloom, our legislator who happened to be white but he was always supportive. They pushed that bill through in the House and it passed. The Governor at the time was Louie Nunn and of course, he could do one of three things with it. He could sign it into law, he could veto it, or he could let it become law without his signature, and that's what he did. And I always say that so that young people will know that, that's how law is made. The Senate passed it, the House passed it, it went to the Governor and he could do one of three things with it; and he let it become law without his signature. That's why we have an open housing law in the state of Kentucky. It passed in 1968. It was one of the first open housing laws in the South. It was the first one in the South. There were not many anyplace else in the country.

DAVIS POWERS: After I had been elected in 1968, sworn in, State Senator, first African-American, first woman there. And I went to get a room in a hotel to stay and could not get a room. No vacancy in none of the hotels. Well, right away I suspicioned that it was because I was an African-American person. 'Cause they had my--although we had a public accommodations law there were still those hotels, especially in rural areas, who were reluctant to accept African-Americans in the hotels. So I had to stay with a private family. And really it's the best thing that ever happened to me because the person I stayed with was executive secretary to the Lieutenant Governor. That gave me access to everything that was going on in the Lieutenant Governor's office. Because she and I became good friends, and so I always knew what was going on before anybody else did, so you know, it worked out well for everybody. But after 'sixty-eight and 'seventy, of course I stayed at the hotels. I always stayed during the week during the session I never commuted daily--on a daily basis because most of the time the legislature convened on Monday at four o'clock, and adjourned on Friday at noon. They always tried to except the last week or so, and so I did not commute every day I was there. And Representative Kidd and all--Kidd and I-- we worked as a team. She was in the House of Representatives, I was in the Senate; we were elected at the same time. And when I initiated bills in the Senate, she managed them in the House. And then when she initiated bills-- because she is the one who initiated the Kentucky Housing Corporation, which is a major, major law here. Ah, low cost housing in the House, and then when it came to the Senate I managed it for her. And it became law. And they are doing a lot of great things, it's not just for low cost housing now, they increased the bar for income, income.