Oral History Interview with Anthony Brooks

DAVID WOLFFORD: This is David Wolfford. It is the 17th of August, 2002. I'm in Evansville, Indiana with Dr. Anthony Brooks. Dr. Brooks, would you just tell me a little bit about your background. Where are you from? Where were you born and when were you born?

ANTHONY BROOKS: I was born in 1934 in the city of Henderson, Kentucky. My mom, my mother's name was Elsie Brooks and my dad's name was Robert Brooks. I'm from a family of six siblings, three boys and three girls, and as of today five of us are still living. I have four children, one male child is a minister; one female daughter is a principal; and the third daughter lives in Dayton, Ohio. 1:00She's a minister, and the fourth son is a common laborer. My wife's name is Alice. We have been married for forty-six years.

DW: Where did you attend school in Henderson?

AB: I attended Douglass High School. Well, I started out at Alves Street Elementary School from grades one through six. And Douglass High School was a combination of junior high and senior high school, grades even through twelve.

DW: What was Alves Street School like when you were a kid?

AB: Alves Street was a school I remember having rickety, crickety stairways, stairwells. We didn't have too much of a cafeteria and had a very limited curriculum but some outstanding teachers.

DW: What makes you say that?

AB: Because they went, they became more than just teachers. They became a part 2:00of your developmental support system. We all knew each other. We all lived in the same neighborhood, and that was a positive stroke I think for us in school. So if there was a need for us to have additional studies and parents were not able to receive communication via telephone, teachers then would come by and become an integral part of your every day life.

DW: Did they ever come knocking on the doors of students' houses?

AB: Sure. Yeah, they did that many times when you were having difficulties. Plus we had a truant officer who also made contact with families. That person when you were absent from school, the person would then be given a list, and she would visit all the homes, those who were absent that day, so you couldn't play, couldn't skip school and not feel comfortable.

DW: Did you ever try to pull that one off?

AB: No. No. Never did skip school.

DW: Then after Alves Street you went to Douglass High School.

AB: Yeah, Douglass. Yeah. It contained grades seven through twelve. It was all in the same building, same teachers, and it was kind of a strange experience.

DW: Why is that?

AB: Because you have seniors who are getting ready to graduate, and you have seventh graders who had just come out of elementary school in the same building. You, the schedules were such that we all ate at the same time and started school the same time, ended the same time. So it was created a little bit, I think a difficult situation. In fact there were seventy-one of us when we became freshmen and after we had graduated from high school, at graduation there 4:00were only eleven of the original ones and twelve who had been retained so we lost about sixty people. I think it was due to the school environment, due to the fact that you had younger kids in school with older persons. Some of those were negative forced upon those who were much younger.

DW: What kind of education though overall do you think was had at Douglass?

AB: It was good, it was a solid education. It was pretty good. There was some, for example we were probably limited in our scientific classes because we didn't have what we would call appropriate or decent chemistry labs and biology labs. But as far as book subjects like social studies and math and language 5:00arts, phys. Ed., music they were all outstanding, but the scientific areas it was limited. Industrial arts was limited also.

DW: Now after you, you graduated from Douglass in what year?

AB: '52.

DW: 1952. Then what did you do after that?

AB: I went to Kentucky State University, and at that time Kentucky State College for one semester. I had a partial band scholarship, and then I still ran out of money so I came back to Evansville and got a job with Chrysler Corporation and stayed with them from 1954 to '66.

DW: You were actually living in Henderson at that time, right.

AB: Right.

DW: Okay. Let's talk a little bit about the desegregation of the Henderson 6:00Schools, and I'd like to start with when the Supreme Court made its ruling in '54. Do you recall that at all?

AB: I recall that. For a while in Henderson nothing was done relative to that decision. Then in about 1955 or '6 there was some debate over when the process was going to get started and they made a plan I believe. I'm not able to recall that very ( ). But they made a plan to do it one year at a time. Like first year desegregation would be first grade and then the next one second grade and the next one third grade. I think a guy by the name of Jim Clancy decided that was too slow. So I think he went to enroll in school in the neighborhood school. Jim is dead now so I'm not, but I think I'm right on that.

DW: Jim Clancy's son was perhaps one of the first blacks to attend with whites in Henderson.

AB: Right. Uh huh.

DW: What kind of effect did that have on the community?

AB: I think basically the community was sort of acquiescent in the whole area. Henderson is a strange community. It does not aggressively seek for new ideas and new concepts. It waits until it has, I guess, seen how things work other places. It's just, that's just the way it is. So when you challenge the status quo then you meet with resistance. So Jim met with some resistance. Probably in both communities. I'm not for sure. Based upon my own personal experiences 8:00I would say he did meet some resistance from, not much, but from community looked upon desegregation as a means to eliminate African American and at that time black schools.

DW: Do you know of any particular forms of resistance that he faced?

AB: No, because Jim worked Chrysler Corporation like I did. So his wife still lives in Henderson. Her name is Margaret Clancy. She moved back from Saint Louis.

DW: Okay. Now you were involved with the NAACP in the, around this time. Can you tell us, what was your relationship with that organization?

AB: I was president of that organization at that time, and we dealt with issues of desegregating public accommodation places, desegregation of schools, 9:00integrating school staffs, had much con--had many conferences with the school board, and we had a lot of protest meetings with them.

DW: How did those go, the conferences with the school board?

AB: Some got real heated. At that time I served as a spokesman. So as far as the organization was concerned it was a unified front. My main concern at that time was I knew what the law of the lands had said that separate but equal was no longer constitutional. So the next step then would be what about black teachers and black school buildings. It's been my position that if the schools I attended budgets were adequate for me, they should be adequate for everybody 10:00else. That's what they taught us. That's what we've been raised and ( ). Douglass was just as separate but equal. Well, and when they made plans to desegregate schools and did not make plans to preserve those institutional buildings, I became highly disturbed because now the practice indicates that the schools were not separate but equal but separate but unequal. I took a stand that they should've made use of those buildings even if they needed to be renovated or replaced. I also maintained that teachers should have been integrated into the staff according to their positions. If they were qualified to be administrators in both schools, they ought to be qualified to be administrators at other school, at the dominate culture school as well as the minority schools, minority population schools. So that didn't work out because 11:00either as of today there is still, there still has not been a school administrator in the Henderson County school system. The highest level have been counselor, I think.

DW: What do you mean? There's not been a black administrator?

AB: Right.

DW: Okay.

AB: African American.

DW: Okay. Well, how, I think I know the answer to this, but how, what was the response from the administration from that position that hey we should go ahead and integrate Douglass instead of just giving the students at Douglass the option to go to the white City High School?

AB: That was never a thought, never a thought for them. They maintained it was their prerogative, and it was, to make sure that the policy of the school was being made compatible with the Supreme Court decision, and Supreme Court 12:00decision did not ask that particular facet of the problem that I was talking about. So they went on and did what they wanted to do. They closed Douglass and took the staff and put the principal, I think he taught, I think he taught at Seventh Street, Mr. Kirkwood, and the rest of the teachers were not old enough to retire, they'd place them around. But--

DW: Did most of the teachers keep some kind of job in the system when Douglass and Alves closed?

AB: Right. Until they were, yeah, they did. I don't know about Pierre--I think Pierre went into Job Corps.

DW: He, he told me last night he went to Commission on Human Rights in Frankfort first and then came to Job Corps after that.

AB: Okay, he could have. He didn't work for schools after that.

DW: Right. Let's talk a little bit more about the NAACP. How did that organization come about in Henderson? How was it created and started?

AB: Clancy was the president, I think, when I became president. After, I was president, I succeeded him I should say. I succeeded Clancy, Mr. Clancy. Before that time there were other persons who had been president. It had been an organization for a long time in Henderson.

DW: Was it a strong organization before you were involved, before you were president?

AB: Yeah, it was strong, but because there was no offensive movement, it became more or less like a lackadaisical. Then during that time it picked up power and momentum, motivation, support from not just the African American in it, but also from the other ethnic groups involved in the community. So we had a broad base of support during that time.

DW: What kind of communication went on between the local NAACP in Henderson and 14:00the state office in Louisville?

AB: Oh direct communication. Every thing, every move that we made or were going to make, we had to notify them as to what we were doing, and during the days of the public accommodations sit ins they were, they supplied us with lawyers, came down and defended us in Henderson.

DW: Do you remember these lawyers?

AB: Yes, there was a lawyer by the name of Jones, Tucker and Crumlin. Yeah. They all, well, I think Jones is still living. I don't know where he is.

DW: Is this Donald Jones?

AB: Umm, he's from up around, he's from Lexington. I don't know.

DW: Okay.

AB: His name was Jones. Then there was James Crumlin, Jim, we called him, but his name was James Crumlin, and then there was a Bishop Newbank Tucker, and he 15:00also came down to defend us and they were state office's lawyers. They were their legal people.

DW: Do you remember Crumlin pretty well?

AB: Yeah. Jim. He used to be president of the state NAACP.

DW: Could you describe him for me or his actions or just his reputation around here?

AB: Jim was, Jim is probably recognized as being one of the best civil rights lawyers in the state of Kentucky. He has been, although he's housed in Louisville, he really serves the whole state. Because he's at retirement age now, I don't think he's practicing law. He's a Methodist minister, part of ( ) at this stage in his life, and he had a buddy named Dearing, Earl Dearing, so Crumlin and Dearing became the lawyers that really on a day by day 16:00basis had contacts with the local branches. Earl Dearing is about, he's deceased. But he was also in Louisville.

DW: Was there ever any talk of legal action in Henderson?

AB: Well, we had legal action. We had legal action when it came down to desegregate public accommodations, but where schools are concerned we didn't do any legal actions because they were meeting the letter of the law. The law said you need to have a plan and they had a plan. With our, I guess our attitude was it wasn't a plan that was moving fast enough and that's where our differences came in. You had a plan, but your plan is too slow. It shouldn't take you twelve years to fully integrate a system as small as Henderson. That was our--

DW: The membership in the NAACP in Henderson, was that ever a problem to gather 17:00members and secure members?

AB: No, not really. NAACP has always had membership fees so if you were not able to pay, that's usually been, that's been the main barrier for membership either. So we had ( ) support from the pastors and the churches, but for a town our size I would say we were right up there with the rest of the people in the state. We attended national conventions in New York and DC, Philadelphia, so we were able to matriculate like the rest of the branches.

DW: Was there ever any pressure to people to stay away from the NAACP? Did the NAACP ever get any kind of pressure from--

AB: No, I don't think so. Not, I wasn't out there in the mix, but I don't think anybody lost their jobs due to their stand. But at the same time what took place outside of your job, for example I worked for Chrysler Corporation. Everybody working with me knew that I was involved in the desegregation process. There was, to my knowledge there was no overt, no overt display of hostilities directed toward me because of what I was doing. So I was working, but I was still a public figure in this process. Everybody didn't believe in the process, but nobody attacked it, attacks me because of it.

DW: How instrumental was the NAACP in making the schools become desegregated in Henderson?

AB: I would say we were very instrumental in that, in school desegregation we were, we lost, I think the only arena we lost in was placement of staff because we just couldn't get that, and I don't know, I don't know the reason for that. They may have had some reason for that and it could've been valid legal reasons but because of confidentiality.

DW: What do you mean by that?

AB: Well, in those days you could have probably had, there were people who were teaching who were not certified in their area. You may have been the principal, but perhaps you were not certified in being an administrator. So that, those 20:00kind of things took place all across the country in those days of segregated schools. If you were a good fellow, they would make you a principal ( ).

DW: Right. Speaking about the time of right before the Brown decision or perhaps two or three years after as schools are becoming integrated or Henderson when it was on the verge or in the first couple years of integrated schools or before that perhaps, did the black community really desire to attend school with the whites at that time?

AB: I would say maybe seventy-five or maybe eighty percent didn't care. It was not anything that they would aggressively seek for. What they were seeking for basically was equal opportunity which could've been done at Douglass if they had 21:00the ( ) common curriculum and facility and staff. Our gym was about the size of my house. It was just very limited, maybe fifty feet long, had wooden bleachers that would hold about two hundred people and crowded. Trying to compete with other schools that had much better facilities and programs was almost impossible. So our thrust was, in my day was to improve what we had and make it equal and then have everybody. Look, if you're going to, if you're going to establish equality of people then you can't negate what 22:00somebody else has in favor of what you have. You have to respect theirs and they have to respect yours, and that's how you get equality. But when you shut down a black school and say your school isn't good enough and take the black staff and disperse them at various places, and nobody is in any kind of key position, it tells the black community that your people are inferior. So that's always but it remains today, one of my main concern of mine. As I look at Henderson today, still basically it's the same pattern. All teachers, the shortage of African American teachers anyway, and there are no administrators. They have one psychologist, one counselor, no head football coach.

DW: Have there been any black board members over the years?

AB: Yeah, one, yeah Mrs. Thelma Johnson. She's still living. She's ninety-three, still very--

DW: Thelma Johnson.

AB: Yeah. Yeah. Outstanding African American lady. There's one now. Darlene ( ), she's a board member. They are both aggressive for their people. I think each one of them, Darlene is doing a great job and she's, Mrs. Johnson did a great job. Still a concern of mine though. I think they share that concern. It's one that remains. It's one thing to be in the teaching 24:00position. But it's another thing to be at another level like where you are a part of the decision making process, not the policy but the decision making on an every day basis, a high school principal or middle school principal or an elementary school principal. If kids who are from the African American community are going to be, their future is going to be determined by the people they come in contact with and the people that are involved in the educational processes. I don't know what people think about this. But they look at themselves and look at the other person. They can ever find somebody in top positions who look like them or live in their neighborhood or in their family structure, then they're not going to have the motivation to excel as if they had a role model who are in the same ethnic group as them, as they were.

DW: I understand.

AB: That's one of my concerns and it's has always been. So you've got, it's 25:00almost like the plantation system. You've still got the plantation manager in control and the rest of us are field laborers. It still remains the same. ( ), but in a small town, I understand in a small town even Evansville, it's hard to I guess to escape that reality because of population. Henderson's population is maybe thirty-five. It hasn't grown much in the last fifty years. Other communities have. I understand that. Bowling Green has grown. Owensboro has grown. Hopkinsville has grown. Madisonville has grown and Henderson has remained the same. I understand that.

DW: Right. If you would trace for me your career as an educator.

AB: Okay, I finished Douglass and Alves Street. I attended one year at Kentucky State College. I left there and I came to University of Evansville at that time Evansville College. I went, I attended Evansville College from 1953, 26:00and I finally got my degree in 1966. My first degree. In '71 I got my master's from University of Evansville, and then in '76 I got my doctorate from Atlanta University. In the mean time I attended Indiana Sate University at Terre Haute and ( ) University in ( ) Indiana and also attended ( ) Baptist College, which is a religious school.

DW: Tell me your experience as a teacher and administrator of schools.

AB: I taught elementary math from 1966 to 1971. Then I became principal of Stanley Hall School, '71-'72. Then they decided to close Stanley Hall School and integrate and to implement a bussing program that involved bussing kids from 27:00the inner city to schools who were outside the inner core and bussing students from outside the inner city to the inner city schools. So what they did was they closed Stanley Hall School where I was principal, made me principal of Lincoln, which became the vocal point of the segregation process because they bussed kids from what I call for lack of a better word from a low socioeconomic areas to another low socioeconomic populated school and mixed two low socioeconomic classes of kids together, which made it really a very volatile. It could've been a very volatile situation. But--

DW: They were mixing them in terms of race but not in terms of socioeconomic levels. Is that what you're getting at?

AB: Right.

DW: And this was all in the Evansville school system.

AB: Right. Right. They brought kids from Columbia, Fulton, and they had, they 28:00kept some from Lincoln ( ) Homes and ( ) Street, and they brought those kids in. It made, for about six weeks it made for a very volatile, but I had a strong young staff, and I was a young principal, young in terms of tenure on the job. We were able to diffuse most of that, and by the end of the second grading period we had a smooth operating program. But that was because of the staff's attitude.

DW: This was early '70s in Evansville.

AB: '71. '71.

DW: Okay. Well, could you, this is a good perspective. You grew up Henderson. You still call Henderson your original home. You're a minister over there all this time and you, you also lived in Evansville and your whole teaching career was in Evansville. Kind of compare and contrast for me just generally speaking, what did the desegregation process in Henderson, how did it compare with 29:00desegregation process in Evansville?

AB: Well, Evansville, what they did over here was at this point in time in the desegregation process in Evansville, I was not a part of the initial stuff. This was a desire to have what they call two-way bussing, bussing in and bussing out. That was never an issue in Henderson because of the fact that Henderson's African American citizens all attended, from various parts of the city, attended Douglass High School. So when the neighborhood school systems were established and Douglass and Alves Street were no longer in existence and we had African Americans were living in the north end, south end and nobody on the east end. 30:00But they were able to ( ) high school and one high school in the city. So they were able to move without any two-way or three-way bussing. So Evansville was a little different. It's a larger city. So you had this school over here in a predominantly African American community. So they had to go out and bring kids in in order to maintain the school and to have an adequate school population ( ). At high school they put the inner city and cut up into five pieces, I call it five slices. So they took one slice sent it to Rice and one slice and sent it to Central and one slice to North and one slice for Harrison and one slice for ( ).

DW: You're talking about the slices are the districts. I guess just kind of like a pie.

AB: Took the inner city, where the predominantly black community was living at 31:00that time and cut it into five places, five pieces and sent one--

DW: To disperse the black population and--

AB: Among the various high schools, but they were no longer predominantly black high schools. Lincoln was already gone. See prior to '71 there was no predominantly black high school. Lincoln had been closed as a high school but was maintained as an elementary school. It was K through eight, still is.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A

START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B

DW: Also if you would compare, what was the public reaction to desegregating schools for the two cities, you know, white and black, was there any difference there?

AB: Well, about the same. There was some parents that were concerned about their children coming from the north side of Evansville, north and west out around Fulton to out around Mary Street and Columbia, which is north, almost 33:00northwest coming into an area that they were, into a neighborhood that they didn't know much about. They were concerned about their kids because of all that stereotypic thought that goes along with America I guess, with our country. But Henderson didn't, once the process started there were no, I don't think there was any what I would call staunch, arrogant opposition. Things went along relatively smooth. There was always a concern where you have a mixture of people, about the same because when you move--the bridge does not make much difference in this community. It's basically the same attitudes over here or 34:00over there. I taught over here because that's where I applied for a job, nothing against Henderson. I just, I finished University of Evansville, getting out of school and they had a direct pipeline to the school corporation. So I hooked up.

DW: Connections, right, right.

AB: And then stayed over here, I could have been probably an educator in Henderson without any problem, but I just, this was my choice.

DW: I see. How would you, let's go back to Henderson alone because that's mainly what we want to talk about here. How would you summarize race relations in Henderson since the '50s?

AB: It's pretty good. I think there's been, it's a great change. It's been a gradual change. I ran for school board one time and also for the city 35:00commissioners over there before I left, and I had a broad base of support, which was I was just breaking, I knew I couldn't, I didn't expect to win at all. It was a way of allowing the total community to see that democracy really works when everybody has access to the democratic way of life but they have to participate in the legislative and the governmental agencies of our community. So I did it not to win but just to display that there are available people who look like me who can be a vernacular political discussor of issues. That's, and so I lost both of them and I expected to lose, but since that time we have a 36:00commissioner and we have two persons elected to the board of education. So my goal in those areas has been accomplished. That's what I did it for.

DW: Kind of a breakthrough.

AB: Yeah, right. But I had a broad base of support both from both communities.

DW: When was that, roughly when was that that you were running for these offices?

AB: 19--'60s I think.

DW: Late '60s.

AB: No I used to, no, it was in, could've been early '60s, early '60s. early '60s. I basically forgotten about that but I think early '60s.

DW: Okay.

AB: I'll take you to the library to find out if you want to find out. May find it on the internet. I'm not sure.

DW: Right.

AB: But it's, I think early '60s. So I was still, I finished college yet. I 37:00don't think so. No, I hadn't finished college so early '60s.

DW: Early '60s, okay. Is there anything else you'd like to say about the era or the situation in Henderson at all?

AB: Oh I think as of today, Henderson is, is a good place to raise a family. It has, there are, with every city there are problems but it's, I would have nothing negative to say about it. I think basically the people in Henderson are pretty compatible and enjoy following the law. That's a southerner's position, you know. They like to do law abiding citizens or the attitude is one of acceptance and wherever I go I'm always highly respected and I don't have 38:00anything negative to say about them really.

DW: Good.

AB: Our churches remains an integral part of what goes on over there. So and I'm still a spokesman for the church and even the, in the civil rights issues over there. And they listen and most of the times they respond in a very positive way. Issues are brought, they don't push them under the table. They address those issues for us and that's all you can ask for.

DW: All right. Well, thank you a lot Dr. Brooks.