[Lightly edited for flow and clarity.]
MUSIC: Sweet in the morning. Oh, Lord, it's sweet in the morning.
Horace Huntley, Interviewer:
This is an interview with Reverend Jerry Green for the Oral History Project of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. I'm Dr. Horace Huntley. Today is April 20, 1995. We're at Miles College. Thank you, Reverend Green, for coming out and sitting with us today.
Jerry Green:
You're welcome.
Huntley:
Tell us about this history. Let me just start by asking some general kinds of questions. Where were you born and what year?
Green:
I was born 1910, February the 18th.
Huntley:
Where?
Green:
At a place called Woodlawn, but the place was grown.
Huntley:
Okay, so that's Birmingham in effect?
Green:
Mm-hmm. Birmingham.
Huntley:
Okay. How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Green:
I had another brother and two sisters. I don't have none of them now.
Huntley:
Oh, okay. So you're the only one that's left?
Green:
Yeah, I was the first one and I'm the only one left in the family, in the immediate family.
Huntley:
Right. Tell me a little about your parents. Where are they from?
Green:
Pell City.
Huntley:
In Pell City, Alabama, which is what, about half hour from Birmingham?
Green:
Yeah. Well, it's Pell City, but they really were born in Cropwell, that's about half hour from there.
Huntley:
Yeah. Just outside of Pell City. It's in St. Clair County though.
Green:
Yeah, that's right.
Huntley:
Okay. What kind of education did your parents have? Did they go to school at all? Do you remember?
Green:
Yeah, I guess they had just a general education.
Huntley:
Just a general education. What about you? How much education did you have?
Green:
I finished high school.
Huntley:
Okay. Did you finish at Industrial High School? [Referring to a segregated, under-funded, all-Black school with a very limited academic curriculum.]
Green:
Yeah. It wasn't Industrial then, they called it ...
Huntley:
Parker now.
Green:
Parker now, but it was Industrial.
Huntley:
It was Industrial then. What do you remember about Industrial High School?
Green:
They had day school and night school.
Huntley:
Is that right? Was it a big school?
Green:
Yeah, it was a big school. It was the biggest one in Birmingham at that time.
Huntley:
The only one in Birmingham at that time, right?
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
Well, do you remember Fess Whatley?
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
Is that right? So you knew Fess Whatley?
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
Yeah. Well, were you in the band?
Green:
No, but I know he played in Tuxedo Junction.[Referring to the Black entertainment district in the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham that was famous for jazz and blues in the 1920s and 1930s.]
Huntley:
Yeah. Okay. What is your most fun memory of Industrial High School? Were there fun times or tough times?
Green:
Yeah. Parker ... Let me see now, he was a little fat man.
Huntley:
Okay. He was the principal?
Green:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:04:04] cemetery.
Huntley:
Okay. What did you do after you finished high school?
Green:
What did I do?
Huntley:
Yes, sir.
Green:
I worked for myself.
Huntley:
What did you do?
Green:
I was a painter.
Huntley:
Oh, you painted for yourself. Okay. So you started your own business?
Green:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:04:27]. I worked at one place. I started my business. I worked for [inaudible 00:04:33] had 75 apartments over there on 23rd Street South. So by the time I get through with them, it'd be time to go back over them again.
Huntley:
So that's what you started doing. Then you were a professional painter and —
Green:
You might say that.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. How long did you do that?
Green:
For around 20 years.
Huntley:
About 20 years. Okay. And how old were you when you got married?
Green:
When I got married?
Huntley:
Yes, sir.
Green:
I was about 20 because my wife died two years afterwards.
Huntley:
Is that right? Uh-huh. What community did you live in?
Green:
I lived in the Groveland area, but it was Woodlawn. Birmingham.
Huntley:
You've always lived in that part of town?
Green:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
So you're very well known in that area there.
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
How would you describe your community? Who lived there? The racial makeup, the occupations of people.
Green:
Well, white people began to run when Black people moved in as usual.
Huntley:
But at the time that you lived there, in the days before the movement, were there whites that lived in your community?
Green:
A few.
Huntley:
A few.
Green:
Some said they wasn't going to move.
Huntley:
So some stayed in [inaudible 00:06:18]?
Green:
It was kind of mixed up then. So they said they wasn't going to move, some of them, but some of them left.
Huntley:
What kind of occupations did people have that lived there? What kind of work did they do?
Green:
Well, they did different things. Different kind of jobs. Pay wasn't much then.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. What was your community's relationship to the Birmingham Police Department? How did the community get along with the police department, with the police?
Green:
Yeah. Well, we got along pretty good. It's always one good one and one bad one.
Huntley:
The good and the bad, huh?
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
Did you ever have any problems with them yourself?
Green:
No, I didn't have nothing with them.
Huntley:
Were you a member of any community organizations before you got involved with the Alabama Christian Movement? What about the NAACP?
Green:
Yeah, I was in [the NAACP], but they banned it. That's when Fred organized the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) [in 1956) because they couldn't come in the church. That's why they organized it in the church, because they banned it out of Alabama.
Huntley:
The NAACP?
Green:
Yeah, they banded the NAACP.
Huntley:
Okay. Had you been involved with the NAACP?
Green:
Yeah, all of us was.
Huntley:
You were? Okay. What did you do? What did the NAACP do at that time? Were they registering people to vote?
Green:
Registering people to vote. Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Were you a voter at the time yourself?
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Do you remember when you went to register to vote?
Green:
Mm-hmm. And old big white fellow was up there, he said, "You can't vote." And the little white boys over there. Yeah, he let him vote. He told me to come back in three days. I went back the next day. He said, "Didn't I tell you not to come back down here?" And Jimmy Barron, he was living in that same apartment. I don't know what he had on that piece of paper because I know that I had a sheep skin coat and I just pulled it out and handed it to him.
Huntley:
What did you pull out and hand to him?
Green:
Envelope. I don't know what was in it.
Huntley:
And where was the envelope from?
Green:
From Jerry Barron. And so he said, "Hold up your hand." Swore me in right then.
Huntley:
Didn't ask you any questions?
Green:
Didn't ask me nothing. I don't know what was in the envelope. I wanted to look in it, but I didn't.
Huntley:
Where did you get ... You got the envelope from the Jerry?
Green:
Yeah, he lived in that same apartment I told you.
Huntley:
Oh, that you were painting. And he gave you a letter to give to —
Green:
I told him what happened [at the voter registration office the first time].
Huntley:
Oh, I see.
Green:
That evening, I met him and I told him what happened. And he said, "Come to my apartment in a few minutes." I went up there in a few minutes and I had a big sheep skin coat. He just give me envelope. It was sealed up.
Huntley:
So evidently the letter said that you must have been a reputable citizen.
Green:
The letter said, "Let this [inaudible 00:09:47]." I don't know.
Huntley:
Okay.
Green:
But anyway, he swore me in.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. Were you alone that day?
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Did anybody go with you?
Green:
Mm-mm.
Huntley:
Nobody went with you. So you were voting after that then?
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
You were a registered voter.
Green:
Yeah. He said, "You know some big people in this town, don't you?" And I said, "I sure do."
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. Tell me then how and why did you get involved in the civil rights movement?
Green:
Because they banned the NAACP.
Huntley:
Okay. And you thought it was necessary to continue it through the organization of the Alabama Christian Movement?
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Were you at their first meeting that Fred [Shuttlesworth] called?
Green:
Yeah. Robert Alford was passing the old starters on the hill.
Huntley:
That's where the first meeting was held.
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Well, tell me what was a meeting like? What happened at the meetings?
Green:
Well, they liked to have to throw some of them out. Some of them were old fellas. They didn't want it.
Huntley:
They didn't want the movement?
Green:
No. They throwed out two or three of them. It was on TV.
Huntley:
And because they were against what Fred was trying to do?
Green:
Yeah. Robert [inaudible 00:11:13] was passing the [inaudible 00:11:14] at that time.
Huntley:
And was he in favor?
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
But there were some there that simply were not in favor of the movement getting started?
Green:
Yeah, some, but the majority was in favor.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. What was your role? What was your role in the movement? Were you one of those men who helped to guard the houses [agasint Ku Klux Klan terrorism]?
Green:
Yeah, I guarded the house. Shuttlesworth's house and Piper's house, Reverend Piper.
Huntley:
Tell me, how did that get started? The guarding of the houses?
Green:
Well, they had to have somebody to guard them because [the Klan] were talking about bombing them, and they did bomb them, and knocked that window out [inaudible 00:12:18] window in. And so when he said ... Johnny L. Lewis, when he said, "Hit the ground." Everybody hit the ground and covered up their head, and then glass just shattered all around us.
Huntley:
You mean you were at the church? You talking about the 16th Street Baptist Church when it was bombed?
Green:
No, not 16th Street, Bethel.[Bethel Baptist church was Rev. Shuttlesworth's church and organizational headquarters of the ACMHR. It was bombed three times by the KKK, 1956, 1958, and 1962. Bethel was located some distance from the white-owned segregated stores and eating establishments in the downtown Birmingham commercial district that were the focus of the 1963 sit-ins and marches. So the protests were staged from nearby 16th Street Baptist Church and adjacent Kelly Ingram Park.]
Huntley:
Oh, when Bethel was bombed.
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Okay. And you were there at?
Green:
Yeah. And we all stonewalled, we hit the ground.
Huntley:
And that's the only thing that saved you, you hit the ground?
Green:
Yeah. Only way that saved, we hit the ground. And I think Johnny L. Lewis, now he's dead.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. So how was that organized? The guarding of the homes and the churches, was that well organized or did you just go out there?
Green:
No, it was well organized. We knew who was going to be where. You knew what time they was going to be and how many hours it was going to be, and then the next one know how many hours, and we come on like that in shifts.
Huntley:
Did you do that once a week?
Green:
No, every night.
Huntley:
Every night?
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
So you would get off of your job and then you would go on to someplace where you would protect someone's home at the church.
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Who were some of the other men that were involved with that effort?
Green:
Who was it?
Huntley:
Who were some of the other men? You know any of the other men that were helping you to do that?
Green:
Yeah, there was some women too.
Huntley:
Some women?
Green:
Yeah. What's that lady's name? There was some women too.
Huntley:
Women helped to guard the homes; is that right?
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Well, were you armed?
Green:
[inaudible 00:14:19]. Were we armed? No.
Huntley:
You were not armed, didn't have guns. You just sitting and watching.
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Okay. Tell me a little about Mr. Shortridge. What was his response?
Green:
Shortridge was a treasure. And them women used to go home with him, guard him home. Boy, it was a time then. So much I can't think of all of it.
Huntley:
Did you ever go to jail?
Green:
I didn't go to jail.
Huntley:
Didn't go to jail. But did you demonstrate? Did you march into demonstrations?
Green:
I marched in the demonstrations, but I didn't ever go to jail.
Huntley:
Can you explain what those demonstrations were like?
Green:
Yeah, I tell you, there was no cowards in there.
Huntley:
You were brave if you were out there.
Green:
Yeah, because you didn't have no gun, no nothing but yourself. And we worked in shifts. If I knew where you were, and you knew where I was, we knew how many hours we were going to work, and just stood up and guarded the house.
Huntley:
What did you do while you sat there and guarded the houses?
Green:
Just sat there.
Huntley:
Talk about the movement?
Green:
We just sat there. We just sat there. See, [inaudible 00:16:00] they intended to pick him up [inaudible 00:16:04] blowed up everything. And Shuttlesworth's wife and children were around in the other room, it didn't involve them. But the mattress went up, and come down, and Shuttlesworth walked out running.
Huntley:
So that must have meant that he was here for a special reason and somebody was protecting him.
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
Yeah. How did your family feel about your involvement with the movement?
Green:
They was for it.
Huntley:
Were they involved? Did they go to the mass meetings?
Green:
No, they didn't go.
Huntley:
But they didn't discourage you from going?
Green:
No. They knew it wouldn't have done no good no way.
Huntley:
What church were you a member of at that time?
Green:
Groveland.
Huntley:
Were you associate pastor there? Okay. Was your pastor involved, and other members of your church, involved in the movement?
Green:
Some of them was. I used to pastor. Some of them were, but not all of them.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. When you were not the pastor, was the pastor involved with the movement?
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
So did they have mass meetings at your church?
Green:
They had mass meetings at all churches then because that's where they was at.
Huntley:
Yeah. So they did have them at your church at Groveland?
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Can you think of any event that stand out in your mind that you participated in during the movement? If I'd ask you, what was the most vivid memory you have of an event that took place during the movement? What would that be?
Green:
When King come from [inaudible 00:18:26] in Dalton, Georgia, they wouldn't work with King, they'd turn him down. And when King, and Andrew Young, and Jose Williams come to Birmingham, and Ms. King. They was walking arm in arm lining the Birmingham.
Huntley:
And that's what you remember most about the struggle?
Green:
Yeah. Ms. King, she was shot. She was playing the organ, and was shot. And Daddy King, he was shot. So he said [inaudible 00:19:07] that boy said he could have killed him, but he said, "Daddy wouldn't want you to do that."
Huntley:
This is when Mrs. King, Dr. King's mother was shot, that's what you're referring to.
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. What would you consider to be the benefits of the movement to your family, the community, and to the nation? How did the movement benefit all of us?
Green:
Well, it benefited by being there for one thing. You know they were there.
Huntley:
So you knew that the movement was there and you knew that the movement was moving on, huh?
Green:
Moving on.
Huntley:
Would you say that the movement was successful?
Green:
I would.
Huntley:
How did it change things?
Green:
Well, for Negros especially. We had more rights because when you voted, that got you more rights. Everyone we could get to vote and register down the Black Belt, very few Negros voting down there, Selma. But we got to vote [at] Brown Chapel, that church down there. We got them registered to vote.
Huntley:
So you were a part of the Selma marches as well then?
Green:
Yeah. Selma to Montgomery.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. Did you actually march from Selma to Montgomery?
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
Were you there?
Green:
We come from way down here, but I didn't march all the way. I rode on the back of the wagon.
Huntley:
Were you there the day that the state troopers met the people on the bridge?
Green:
No, I wasn't there that day, but I was there the next time. Yeah, that's where they met them at. They call that Bloody [Sunday]. That's where they beating them up and everything. But them same policemen, they welcomed that next year.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. They had been ordered to protect the marches at that point, right?
Green:
Yeah. On the count of voting. Negros was voting. [inaudible 00:21:50] wanted to vote, he couldn't tell a Black vote from a white vote.
Huntley:
Well, tell me, what do you remember about growing up in Birmingham that would make you happy when the movement came along?
Green:
Well, like I said, Birmingham was a segregated city and when the movement came along, we had more freedom on the count of we voted.
Huntley:
What was segregated? How did segregation actually operate?
Green:
Well, if you was a Negro [inaudible 00:22:28] on them street cars. If you was a Negro, they had a [inaudible 00:22:32] there. You sit over here and the white folks sit over there. Even if you stand up, it was like Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was tired and she didn't get up. So we got a lot of benefits out of it.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. So you would say that it was successful and that ... Would you think that Birmingham as a city had a real impact upon the success of the civil rights movement overall?
Green:
Well, Birmingham is what made King. That's where he got his recognition from, from Birmingham.
Huntley:
So they couldn't do it in Albany, Georgia?
Green:
No, he couldn't do it. Them Negroes, they turned their back on him. They couldn't do it. And he was glad to get somewhere to come. Shuttlesworth was King's secretary. He brought him over there to us, and he was glad to get somewhere to come. [inaudible 00:23:44] King was known nation wide, but Birmingham made King, gave him the biggest boost.
Huntley:
How would you describe Fred Shuttlesworth?
Green:
Frederick Shuttlesworth, his mother lived in Oxmoor anyway. He was a Birmingham man, but Fred Shuttlesworth, it ain't hardly no way to describe that man. He's somebody's man. He was then and is now. Him and Piper went up to a white school and they beat them with chains.
Huntley:
Up to Phillips High School?
Green:
Yeah, beat them with them chains.
Huntley:
Were you there that day?
Green:
They put him in jail. We were going to sleep out there that night if they didn't let him out. They put him in jail, and the next morning he come out smiling. With them marks on him now, he come out smiling.
Huntley:
Was that the time that his wife was stabbed?
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
You went up with him during the time that he was attacked? Were you there with him at the time?
Green:
I wasn't right with him, no. We were back because [inaudible 00:25:14] was supposed to send the policeman. He didn't send no police.Peck, Peck was a rich man's son, but he was down here with him from New York, and they [inaudible 00:25:33] move the car away and they wouldn't take him, so we carried him to Hillman. And they said two Negroes, dressed up Negroes brought him and gave him a dime and took him in a car, that was me and Montgomery.
Huntley:
This is when James Peck came in with the Freedom Riders
Green:
Mm-hmm.
Huntley:
Okay.
Green:
Me and Montgomery.
Huntley:
Mm-hmm. Okay, Reverend, is there anything else that you would like to add that we hadn't talked about today? Something that you would like for people to know about where the movement is concerned?
Green:
I think Emory Jackson was fighting for freedom, like I said, before anybody. And his sister couldn't get a job, and she had to go to Florida. She couldn't get a teaching job here on the count of that. And so his mama said she was going to give them something they couldn't take, an education. So like I said, Jackson really was fighting before anybody.And Fred would tell him where we going to meet because we meeting from church to church. And Jackson would put in his paper where we going to meet at every week, what time, and where we going to meet. And then he'd go up there in [inaudible 00:27:07] every Monday. [inaudible 00:27:14] had some pimps there we knew, so they wouldn't have to tell him.
Huntley:
So you'd tell him so he wouldn't have to worry about getting it from the pimps.
Green:
Yeah.
Huntley:
Well, I want to thank you for coming out and sitting with us to tell us about what happened during the movement and how Birmingham influenced the movement. And it's obvious that you have a lot of information about Fred Shuttlesworth and others. I want to thank you for taking your special time out to come and talk with us about it.
Green:
Well, I was glad to. And I don't know, I was trying to think about if I think anything else —
Huntley:
Okay.
Green:
— I will.
Huntley:
Okay. If you think of anything else, we'll be glad to come out and sit with you again. But again, I appreciate you taking your time out. And all I need to know is what's your secret to staying here 85 years?
Green:
It ain't no secret. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.
Huntley:
Okay, that's it.
Green:
Love thy neighbors.
MUSIC: Sweet in the morning. Oh, Lord, it's sweet in the morning.
Copyright © Green & Huntley. 1995
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