[Transcript lightly edited for flow and clarity]
Jimmy Rogers:
[speaking of the New York State Commission Against Discrimination that he worked for in the early 1960s]
... and what they did, they investigated allegations of bigotry in public accommodations, employment, and housing. I remember one time, I went to a barbershop. Now, in New York, if you're a barber, you're supposed to be able to cut everybody's hair. All right? So they sent me to this barbershop, and when I got there, they told me that they didn't know how to cut my hair. So I didn't care. I was very happy about that, because —So when I got back, [the Commission] said, "Well, what happened?" I said, "They told me they didn't know how to cut my hair." They said, "Well, they didn't tell you they weren't going to cut it, so you have to go back."
So I went back to the barbershop, and they cut it. When I got back to the office, everybody inspected my head, "Oh. That's a real good haircut."
I said, "But please don't send me back there." That was one of the things that I did.
Then, people were being denied access to housing, and they sent me to this one place where they told me they didn't have any more apartments for rent and all that sort of stuff. So I went back [to the Commission], and I said, "Oh. They said they didn't have any more apartments for rent." Then, they sent a white person there, and they got an apartment. So they sent an investigator out to talk to them about it. He explained to them what went on, and they were aware that he discriminated against me, and if he didn't change, they were going to take him to court.
Emery:
How old were you at this time?
Rogers:
Well, I had been in the service. I think I might have been 22, 23, something like that. I worked for the New York State Commission for about two years, and then I decided that I was going to go to Tuskegee [University in Alabama, a Black college].My first experience with racism in going to Tuskegee was riding the bus. We had to ride in the back of the bus. See? So that was the first one. Then, the second one was I couldn't eat in the restaurant of the bus station. The third one was I couldn't use the regular bathroom. We had our own bathroom, Black bathroom. Then, the water fountain, I had to drink Black water, as we used to call it. They had a water fountain just for Black people, and I mean it just went on, and on, and on.
So as I began to meet people and go out, schoolmates, we decided that we were going to go to Alabama State University in Montgomery [a Black college] to a football game. So we went to the football game. On the way back to Tuskegee, we decided we would stop at the [Montgomery] bus station to get something to eat. Well, I used to dress with suits and ties and just looking like the typical New Yorker. When we got to the bus station, here's two cops standing outside the place, and they're looking at me up and down, nice, shiny shoes, that kind of thing. So they looked at each other, and, "Okay."
So I walk in. When I walk inside with my two friends, they came in right behind us, and there was this mirror there. Every time I would look in the mirror, I'd see them watching me. I said, "Uh-oh. This is trouble."
So I told my two friends, I said, "Don't worry about it. I'll pay it for it. But you go outside, because I think there's going to be a problem when I get up and walk out." They says, "Oh. They're not thinking about you." You know? Both of them were from Alabama. So I said, "No. Do what they tell you, because I think I'm going to have a problem when I walk out of here." So they said, "Okay." I feel better.
So they walked out. I waited a few minutes, and then I left. When I left, they came out right behind me, and I walked on. I was just waiting to see what was going to happen. I heard somebody say, "Hey, boy." I looked all around. I walked a little more. "Hey, boy." I said, "Who are you talking to?" "We're talking to you." I said, "Oh. Okay." So one was short, and one was tall. They had a little baton and a big baton. So this guy comes up, and I had on this hat. He sat the little baton on top of my hat. I said, "Uh-oh. Here we go. Trouble."
So about this time, there's a guy, another Black guy coming out of the bus station, and they said, "Hey, boy. Let me see your teeth," to this guy." So he looked at them, and he said, "I don't have any teeth, MF," like that, walking down about his business. I looked. I said, "Oh God." So they looked at me, and they said, "Hee-hee-hee. He doesn't have any teeth." So I said, "Oh?"
So he said, "Where are you from?" I said, "New York." "What are you doing down here?" I said, "I go to school here." "Don't they have any schools up there in New York?" I said, "Yeah, but I like these down here better." They said, "Oh. Yeah. Schools down here are better than they are in New York." And they just went on, and on, and on. "What did your mother do? What did your father do?" this, that, and the other thing. So they told me, "You can come down here anytime you want to."
Took [my friends] six months before they could talk me into going back down to Montgomery after that, but finally, I sort of got used to it.
But an incident that really got my attention out was Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and about three or four other SNCC people. I know most of you probably heard of Stokely Carmichael, is that right, and H. Rap Brown. No?
Unidentified:
He was in the reading today, wasn't it?
Emery:
How did you meet them?
Rogers:
Okay. Stokely — What about John Lewis?
Emery:
Raise your hand if you've heard and know about John Lewis. One person.
Rogers:
Okay. Well, you know John Lewis is a congressman.
Andrew:
I did not know that.
Rogers:
You didn't know that, that he was the congressman?
Emery:
From Georgia.
Rogers:
From Georgia. Yeah. Well, he is a congressman, right now. And Stokely Carmichael died. But [Stokely] was the one who started the SNCC Lowndes County project and started people organizing in Lowndes County, where they did the voter registration and stuff like that. Rap Brown later became chairman of SNCC, but right now, he's in federal prison because of some altercation that he had with the police in Georgia. He'd been there for three, four years.
Emery:
So you were with these guys?
Rogers:
I was with them. Well, there was six of us altogether, and we went to this restaurant in Montgomery from Atlanta. We were at Atlanta office, and then we went to this restaurant in Montgomery, Alabama. When we got there, we were hungry, so we thought we would get something to eat. We ordered the stuff to eat. This was even after they passed the [civil rights law, 1964], and there were one or two people that had gone down to register to vote. So we thought the world had changed.So when we got to the restaurant and we ordered food, that was fine, but there was six of us all together. The other three of the guys went, and they sat down at this table. The guy was busy cooking the food, and he looked up. He saw them sitting at the table, and he said, "Oh. No." So we asked him, "What's the problem?" "You can't sit here. You can't eat here." So Rap Brown was always very funny. He says, "What did he say?" I said, "What I understood is we can buy it, but we can't eat it here." He a big guy. He walks up to the guy, and he looked at him. He said, "Let me tell you something. I hope you're pretty hungry, because if we can't eat this here, we can't eat it. So you have a good lunch." We got back in the car, and went to the airport, Montgomery Airport, and got something to eat, and it was pretty good.
The main thing that I was involved in [had to do with] a killing of a young man by the name of Jonathan Daniels. Jonathan Daniels was an Episcopal seminarian who came down around the time of the Selma to Montgomery march, and he decided that he wanted to go to Fort Deposit [in Lowndes County] with us to protest Blacks not being able to go into this restaurant. What they would do, they would sell them food, but they would have to go around to the back window and pay them the money. Then, the people inside would hand them the food. So we had about 20 people, and they had signs saying, "No more back door," and all that sort of stuff.
When we got down to the restaurant, we're getting ready to picket. There were [white] people waiting for us with ax handles, and pistols, and shotguns, just about every kind of weapon you could possibly think of. I was in the front, because I was leading the demonstration. The sheriff came up, and he stuck this shotgun in my face. He said, "You're under arrest." So I said, "Would you mind telling me why?" "Oh. For parading without a permit and disturbing the peace." I said, "Oh. Okay."
So at the same time, Stokely Carmichael wasn't in the demonstration, but he got arrested for just being there, being in the area. So he said, "Me too?" They said, "No. Not you. We haven't decided what we were going to do with you." So they pulled up this garbage truck, and we had to get on the garbage truck. They didn't take us to the county seat [at first]. They took us to Fort Deposit Jail, which was really small for all the people that we had. So [then] they put us back on the garbage truck and drove us to Hayneville, which was the county seat.
Emery:
Do you see that on your maps, Fort Deposit and Hayneville?
Rogers:
Okay. So when we got to Hayneville, we drove them nuts, because all we did was sing freedom songs for a whole week. I think when we left, they were singing freedom songs. They knew —
Emery:
Couldn't get them out of their heads. Couldn't get it out of their heads. Right.
Rogers:
Right. Well, for about five or six days, in fact, it was about seven days, because we got arrested on a Saturday. Then, we were released, I think, on a Saturday. But when they released us, I walked over, and I asked the guy, I said, "Why are you releasing us?" "Nevermind that. Just get out of here." I said, "Oh." Said to myself, "I don't like this. No. This doesn't sound right."So we went outside, and we were standing on the front steps [of the jail]. They tried very hard to get us all to go around the corner to this little store that we used to go to whenever we were in Hayneville and never had a problem. People were always very nice and whatnot, but this day, something told me not to do it. So I told people, I said, "I don't think this is safe. We shouldn't do it." But there's always a couple of hardheads. They decided that they were going to go. So we had one guy called —
Emery:
It might actually be appropriate to talk about the food that you had for a week and then the opportunity, the first opportunity to get out of jail and actually have something that isn't vile. Right? I mean, that's part of the attraction of going to the store, right, is to go buy something that tasted good or have an ice cream, or a cold soda, or —
Rogers:
That might have been it. I don't know what it was, but something just told me that day —
Emery:
Not to do it.
Rogers:
I didn't want nothing out of that store. I wasn't going around there no matter what.
Emery:
But the people who went, perhaps —
Rogers:
Yeah. The people that went might of —
Emery:
— were tired of —
Rogers:
— wanted the food, but I didn't want it. Most of the other people, after I said that I wasn't going to go, they decided that they didn't want to go.
Unidentified:
So the people [police] at the jail were encouraging you all to go to the store?
Rogers:
No. They were encouraging us to get away from the jail. They had something planned, but whatever it was, they didn't want to do it right there at the jail.
Unidentified:
So you were released from prison?
Rogers:
We were released. Right. But when I finish explaining what's about to come, you'll understand the reason why.So I decided that I wasn't going to move. They were determined that I move ... [inaudible 00:20:14] that they were going to "lock you up again." Right? So I walked down the street, but there was no way I was going to go around the corner to the store. So it was two women and two men who went to the store. The two men were white, and the two women were Black. They walked to the store. There was a guy in there waiting with a shotgun, and the woman went to walk in first. The Episcopal seminarian, Jonathan Daniels pushed her out of the way, and the guy shot him. Behind him was Father Morrisroe and another woman, and he shot Father Morrisroe in the back.
Jonathan Daniels was killed instantly, but Father Morrisroe was injured very badly. After this happened, the guy pointed the gun at us. We was about a half a block away, and then he hopped in his car and took off. I walked up, because I didn't think there was anybody else around. When I got there to where they were, there was about 20 people hidden with weapons and everything. I said, "Oh God."
They told me, they said, "You better get out of here, because if you don't, you're going to be laying down with them." So I had to leave, and about that time, there was another SNCC worker with a car coming down. He picked me up and took me to Selma.
[For additional details see Murder of Jonathan Daniels]But like I said, Jonathan Daniels was dead, and Father Morrisroe was seriously injured. About a month or two later, they had a trial, and what they did, they called all kinds of witnesses that weren't there. The only one that was there was Ruby Sales, and she couldn't tell them too much of what happened. I was supposed to testify, and the trial or whatever it was half over. I went into the [elected white prosecutors'] office, and I asked him, I said, "When am I going to testify?" He looked at me, and he laughed. He said, "Never." I said, "Oh. Okay. I can see now. You don't intend to prosecute anybody." He said, "That's right."
So [Tom Coleman, the killer] was found not guilty, and, in fact, they said it was self-defense and let him go.
Then, there was another incident in Lowndes County, and the strange thing about it, out of all the people during the time that I was there that got killed were — all were white. See, most people don't realize that. You had Mrs. Viola Liuzzo, who was killed in Lowndes County, a white woman from Detroit. Then, you had Jonathan Daniels, and then you had Reverend Reeb, but that wasn't really in Lowndes County. It was about five miles out of Lowndes County [in Selma Alabama].
Unidentified:
Was that intentional or coincidental?
Rogers:
Oh. Yeah. It was very intentional. That wasn't just a coincidence.
Unidentified:
It was more like, "You're a race traitor, so you're going to [inaudible 00:25:17]?"
Rogers:
You got it. Yeah.
Emery:
Well, I don't think they were seeking out white people to kill. The problem is that white people had come down. People were being killed all the time, but now, there were a bunch of white people down. I mean, these are all northerners, right? Reeb, Liuzzo, and Daniels were all white northerners, just like Mickey Schwerner and Goodman were.
Rogers:
Yeah. Schwerner and Goodman incident.
Emery:
Right? In fact, there's the parallel between the way the Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney were killed is very similar to the way Daniels and maybe Morgan[?].
Rogers:
Getting out of jail.
Emery:
Yeah. Right. Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney were arrested, and then they were let out late at night. They were waylaid by a bunch of people on their way home. Then, they were shot in the woods, and then their bodies were dumped in a dam that was being built. It was very similar.
Rogers:
Very similar. Then, there was another incident that's really very close to me, and that's Sammy Younge. Are you familiar with that one?Right one night, Sammy Younge, who was a fellow student at Tuskegee with me, we were planning to go out and canvas the area to encourage people to register to vote. We talked that night, and Sammy left the house. He said, "I'll see you tomorrow morning," And I said, "Okay. Yeah. I'll see you then." About a half an hour later, we got this call at Freedom House, because that's where I was living at the time, that Sammy had been shot down by the bus station. So we hopped in the car and went down to the bus station, and we didn't see anybody or anything. But we walked around, and one of our guys, Samuel Shoots [Shutes?], it was me, and Shoots, and Wendell Paris.
I don't know. Have you ever met him? Wendell's in Mississippi now. But we were looking around for Sammy, and somebody, it looked like somebody had drug him behind this gas station where he got shot and just left him there. So it turned out that the guy that ran the gas station, [Sammy] and the guy got in an argument because he bought some gas and wanted to use the bathroom. The guy wouldn't let him. So they got in an argument, and Sammy was born and raised in Tuskegee. But if you saw Sammy, you would think he was white, not Black.
But everybody knew him, and they knew that he was Black. He was really very proud of it. He was sort of a very in-your-face type person. He let you know exactly how he felt, and he wasn't the type of person that would back down. He talked quite a bit and ended up getting shot, but that was another case like the Coleman case [the man who murdered Daniels]. The man that shot him didn't suffer any consequences for it.
Emery:
So he was shot by the gas station attendant?
Rogers:
Yes. He was shot by the gas station attendant.
Emery:
For wanting to use the restroom?
Rogers:
For wanting to use the restroom. Now, does anybody have any questions that you'd like to ask me?
Emery:
We've talked a lot about the tension between nonviolence and violence, about wanting to fight back. Did you encounter that? Did you have a tension within yourself about that, I mean, the SNCC demanding that you be nonviolent?
Rogers:
No, and the reason why I didn't, the way I rationalized it, I figured that if I felt that way, then I shouldn't be there. I went in with my eyes open, and I've been around enough incidents where people got hurt or people I've known had been killed that if I felt that I couldn't take it, that I shouldn't be there. Because not only is it possible that you could end up getting yourself hurt, but you get other people hurt. That's something I wouldn't want to do.
Emery:
So one of the main reasons why you were committed to nonviolence is because it was a way to keep people from getting hurt.
Rogers:
Yeah. I'm not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn't go into a demonstration or do other SNCC work or anything like that [using violence].
Emery:
So what does that mean you're not a pacifist? What does it mean when you say you're not a pacifist by any means?
Rogers:
What I mean is that if I'm walking down the street, and somebody threatens me, I'm going to do whatever I feel is necessary to deal with the situation.
Emery:
So if someone takes a swing at you, you'll swing right back.
Rogers:
Hit right back.
Emery:
So SNCC wasn't necessarily advocating people taking out of themselves from marches if they feel like they could be violent. This was something in the person that will —
Rogers:
Yeah, but most of the people that I know that were in SNCC would never do anything that would place other people in danger.
Unidentified:
So they were picked by that trait, or the organization was promoting that behavior?
Rogers:
Promoting what behavior?
Unidentified:
Nonviolence.
Rogers:
Right.
Unidentified:
Or if you feel like you might be violent, taken out of —
Rogers:
Oh. No. There are some people now, like John Lewis, who are really nonviolent. There were other people in the movement that were nonviolent. Then, there was some that could be pretty violent, yeah, but they wouldn't do it in the civil rights context.
Emery:
Okay. But this wasn't just ... So SNCC wasn't telling people or teaching them to take themselves out of situations like that didn't call for violence?
Rogers:
No. What they were doing was they were telling people that if you can't do [civil rights activity] nonviolently, don't be there. There are a lot of people that have told me, "I couldn't do that." If you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't go.
Emery:
When you went to Fort Deposit, and you were organizing the picket of the store, all right, there was also voter registration going on, as well.
Rogers:
That's right.
Emery:
And the people, when you say men and women, they were really kids, right, doing the pickets? A lot of the kids, they were teenagers?
Rogers:
Oh. They were all kids. Yeah. Except for, well, Daniels was a grown man, and Morrisroe.
Emery:
Right, right, but the local people.
Rogers:
Local people, yeah, were mainly — Yes.
Emery:
You had come to organize the local people, and they were mostly the high school kids, right?
Rogers:
Right.
Emery:
Right? They had some trouble with the concept of nonviolence, didn't they? Or not?
Rogers:
No.
Emery:
Did you have to teach them how to — They didn't need any instruction to say, "Be nonviolent, and don't fight back"?
Rogers:
No. They knew how we were.
Emery:
How did they know that?
Rogers:
Because we spent a lot of time with them.
Emery:
All right. So this wasn't the first time you'd been to Fort Deposit.
Rogers:
Oh. No. That was my area [within Lowndes County] where I worked.
Emery:
And how long had you been working with these kids?
Rogers:
More than a year.
Emery:
More than a year. So they'd [inaudible 00:35:37]. When you say work with them, what did you do with them besides organize pickets and get people to register to vote?
Rogers:
Well, we would go from house to house, getting people registered to vote and that sort of thing.
Emery:
So most of the time you were canvassing?
Rogers:
Right. Canvassing and that sort of thing.[Note: Any form of small-scale protest in the South, even nonviolent picketing or distributing leaflets, often led to arrests. So adults with jobs to keep and families to support focused on becoming registered voters and sometimes participating in large-scale mass marches, while students and youth were the mainstay of highly visible direct actions like sit-ins and picket lines. --bh]
Emery:
And so you had developed relationships with the kids during that?
Rogers:
Oh, yes. In fact, I spent a good amount of time living there in Fort Deposit.
Emery:
Who did you live with?
Rogers:
There was a woman, older woman who did quilting and all that sort of stuff. I used to stay at her house. Then, there was a family that I stayed with, John. I keep forgetting his last name, but whenever I go to Lowndes County, I always look for him. I see him.
Emery:
Were they putting themselves at risk for housing you? Because Fort Deposit was sort of the center of that area, right? That's where the courthouse was, to register to vote for all the people around?
Rogers:
No. The courthouse was in Hayneville. See, that was the county seat.
Emery:
That's where most of the whites lived, in Hayneville?
Rogers:
No. Most of the whites lived in Fort Deposit.
Emery:
But the county was, what, 80% Black?
Rogers:
That's right.
Emery:
So the whites were a significant minority.
Rogers:
Well, there was only whites and Blacks. So 80% of them were Black, and then 20% of them were white.
Emery:
But no Blacks had registered to vote in Lowndes County before you came. Right?
Rogers:
That's right. Didn't have not one. I was very surprised at something that you said earlier that I didn't know. It seemed like there were a few Blacks who were registered in Selma. I guess, and now that I think of it, it was probably Amelia Boynton, who was a lawyer. Yeah. I think he might have been registered, and maybe a few others. But there were very few, if any, that were registered to vote there.[Note: In 1961, out of 15,000 Blacks in Dallas County (Selma) only 130 were on the books as registered voters. But few, if any of them, ever dared to try to vote. --bh]
Emery:
And you were able to register people to vote [in Lowndes County after passage of the Voting Rights Act.]?
Rogers:
Right.
Emery::
But the only time there was violence was after you were let out and Daniels and the other Reverend was shot. Right?
Rogers:
That was the only time with us, but there was Liuzzo.
Emery:
That was the only time that you experienced any violence. Andrew, you had a question?
Andrew:
Were you involved with the Lowndes County Black Panther Party? Like in the formation of it or —
Rogers:
Yes. It was a Lowndes County project, and we had an excellent research department at SNCC.
Emery:
Your research department was Jack Minnis.
Rogers:
But there was other people that worked closely with Jack Minnis. But Jack was the man.
Emery:
I wouldn't call it a department.
Rogers:
We always called it a department.
Emery:
You called it your research, the SNCC research department.
Rogers:
Yeah, because the research department was composed of people that worked in the SNCC office at 360 Nelson Street in Atlanta.Emery:
So the Lowndes County Freedom Democratic Party, it had its beginning with the research department?
Rogers:
Right. Yeah, because Stokely Carmichael went. He was the leader, and he went. He talked —
Emery:
Of the Lowndes County project?
Rogers:
Right. He went, and he talked to Jack Minnis. Because they were having a hard time. I forget the motto of the [white-only] Democratic Party in South. It was a racist — ["White Supremacy ~ For the Right."]It was a racist motto, and we didn't like it, and especially Stokely, he didn't like it. So we were trying to start our own party, and plus, in order to become a Democrat — the people didn't have, and we wanted to run candidates. So we wanted to set up our own structure in terms of how much people were going to have to spend to run for this and run for whatever office they decided that they wanted to run for.
[Note: As in many other southern states, the Alabama Democratic Party at that time was white-only and did not allow Blacks to participate in party-affairs or run for office in party primaries even if they were registered voters. All of the elected officials in Alabama were members of the all-white Democratic Party. --bh]
Emery:
So in order to form a political party, according to Alabama state law, you had to have a slogan, and you had to have a symbol. And so when you formed the Lowndes County [Freedom Organization] to register Blacks and create your own political party, which was — That's what Jack Minnis discovered, was that you could create your own local party without it having to be part of the state party.
Rogers:
That's correct.
Emery:
Right? And so that you had to pick a symbol. You couldn't become a party unless you had a slogan and a symbol. And so the symbol for the local Democratic Party was the white rooster.[Note: Under Alabama law, the legal rationale for forcing to Blacks to pass a so-called literacy test in order to register to vote was that voters must be able to read. But so many illiterate white voters were registered to vote that Alabama law required every party to have a ballot symbol so that white voters could be instructed to mark their ballots next to the white rooster. --bh]
Rogers:
That's right.
Emery:
Were you there in the discussion about how the Lowndes County Freedom Democratic Party, how did they decide on the [Black Panther] symbol? Were you there for that discussion?See The Black Panther Symbol: An Email Discussion
Rogers:
No. I wasn't.
Emery:
[But despite the symbol] it wasn't [formally] called the "Black Panther Party," right? It was called the Lowndes County Freedom Democratic Party.
Rogers:
No. The Lowndes County Freedom Organization.
Emery:
Oh yes. Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO). Right. With the black panther as its symbol.[Note: Because of it's symbol, people colloquially referred to it as the "Black Panther Party." --bh]
Emery:
Then, you started canvassing for that party.
Rogers:
Yeah. [To elect] sheriff and tax assessor and all that sort of stuff.
Emery:
Mm-hmm, and did you win?
Rogers:
The first time [in 1966], we didn't. We got robbed.
Emery:
What do you mean you got robbed?
Rogers:
In other words, in counting the ballots and all that sort of stuff, we didn't —
Emery:
Some ballots got lost?
Rogers:
Yeah. Lost and burned up or whatever. You know? They —[See 1966 Alabama Elections for more information.]
Emery:
And what happened the second time?
Rogers:
The second time, I wasn't there. I had left, but I think they did get a couple of people elected. I think the next time, there were a lot of people that were elected. John Hulett became the first sheriff, Black sheriff of Lowndes County. The same thing happened in Tuskegee in Macon County. We had a guy named Amerson. He got elected sheriff in that county. So we had quite a few sheriffs real quick, and sheriff was a very powerful position in those counties.
Emery:
So did that make a big difference, then, for people when they had a Black sheriff?
Rogers:
Oh. Yes. It made quite a bit of a difference, because people weren't getting as many traffic tickets. People weren't getting fined as much as they were when you had the crooked sheriffs in office. But then, to be honest, when Blacks became sheriff, it was payback time, because I'm sure that, or I heard that they were doing some of the same stuff to white people that white people had been doing to them for a long time.
Emery:
Extra tickets and extra fines?
Rogers:
Right.
Emery:
But not murdering people?
Rogers:
Right.
Emery:
Not quite the same.
Rogers:
No. It wasn't. But what really amazed me, and I knew that we had struck the right chord, was that when I went back, I had never seen a Black highway patrolman. I walked —
Emery:
When was this? When did you go back?
Rogers:
About two years after I left, to visit.
Emery:
Okay. So '68, '69?
Rogers:
'69 or '70. I saw about 40 highway patrolmen, and they were all Black. I'm like, "Huh?" I couldn't believe it. Because I'd been there six, seven years [earlier], and I'd never seen one. Now, all of a sudden, everywhere I look, I see Black highway patrolmen now. You had the same thing with sheriffs, because there were a lot of counties in Alabama that were in what they call the Black Belt counties. The Black Belt county, a lot of them were over 60% Black. Like Lowndes County and Selma [Dallas County], they were 80% Black. There were a lot of counties in Alabama that were 60% to 80% Black.
Emery:
Why did you leave [the South]?
Rogers:
Well, I was sort of getting tired of the South, because they didn't have a lot of the cultural things that I was interested in. It was quite different. In fact, I talked to somebody today who had spent quite a bit of time in South, Alabama and Mississippi, and they had a good time while they were traveling around. But they said, "I couldn't live there."In fact, this person was born and raised here in San Francisco, and they're used to this kind of life. See, I'm a city person, coming from New York. There's so much more to do in these places than there would be in Alabama, or Mississippi, or Louisiana.
Emery:
You got tired of football games?
Rogers:
Oh no. I'm an avid Cal fan. ["Cal" refers to the University of California at Berkeley.] I go to all the Cal home games.
Emery:
So if football had been played all year round in Alabama, maybe you'd still be there?
Rogers:
Well, there are other things that I like to do other than watch football games.
Emery:
All right. All right. I'm just teasing you.
Emery:
Any other questions?
Unidentified:
Did any people from the SCLC stay with SNCC in Lowndes County?
Rogers:
Yeah. In fact, our organization [Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement (BayVets)], we have people that were involved with SCLC.
Unidentified:
Why were you in a jail during the [Selma to Montgomery] march?
Rogers:
Oh. We were demonstrating in Montgomery, marching and all that sort of stuff, and they'd arrest 50 to 100 people. No sooner than they arrest us, then come 100 or 50 to 100 more. They arrested so many people that they didn't have any more room in the county jail. So they had to start sending people to state prison, which was right in the city of Montgomery.
Emery:
You were marching in Montgomery, though, when you were arrested.
Rogers:
Right.
Unidentified:
I always kind of wondered, for people who participated in the freedom movements, were criminal records expunged once it was all said and done, or did that follow people? Because it doesn't seem like it would be fair to keep that on your criminal record when you were working for the common good.
Rogers:
I'm the perfect example. I came to California. I put down there [on job application forms], "I was arrested such and such a time, such and such a time." I was never convicted of anything. So nothing they could do.
Emery:
I think the answer is no, it wasn't expunged.
Unidentified:
So people who were convicted, it still followed them?
Emery:
Yes. They were convicted, and arrested, and put in jail.
Unidentified:
That seems like something that the federal government should have done like an annulment of or blanket amnesty.
Rogers:
Well, in most cases, that's what happened.
Emery:
Oh. It did happen?
Rogers:
Yeah. If it wasn't something that they could really charge you with, and we had some of the best lawyers you could ever see, I mean, from all over the country. We had a lawyer out of Detroit. I mean, this guy was a genius. Yeah. He ended up becoming a judge in Detroit, Michigan. He would fly out here, because he handled the case, that case for me where I got arrested and ended up in jail, me and two other guys. We had a lawyer in Montgomery, but he didn't trust him. He says, "I better get on the plane and go."So the judge was getting mad at our lawyer from Montgomery, and in walks this guy, shock. He comes in. He listens for about a second, and he's getting mad. He does like this to our lawyer, and he called for a recess. They went, and they talked about two minutes. The guy went back, and he said — I don't know what he told — I don't remember what it was that he told him, but he said — The judge looked at him, and he said, "Well, why didn't you say that in the first place? Case dismissed." That was a good feeling, but he walked in just at the right time to deal with that.
Emery:
It's a good thing his plane wasn't late.
Rogers:
Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm trying to think of his name, too. He has a son that's — He died, but he has a son that's a congressman from Detroit.[Note: Criminal cases of people arrested in the South around voting rights issues were usually transferred to federal court under a voting rights provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Those cases were eventually dismissed without trial or penalty and therefore no criminal record. People arrested for other civil rights issues, such as lunch-counter segregation sit-ins, often stood trial in the county where they were arrested, were convicted, and served time in jail or paid fines. Those cases resulted in criminal records.]
Emery:
So when you left Alabama, you came to San Francisco or went back to New York?
Rogers:
I came to San Francisco, because my wife graduated from Cal.
Emery:
And you met her where?
Rogers:
In Alabama.
Emery:
In Alabama. So she was a civil rights worker, too?
Rogers:
She did her undergraduate work at Cal and her graduate work in Michigan.
Emery:
And how did you meet and where? Where and how did you meet?
Rogers:
She worked at Tuskegee. She worked for Tuskegee at a program that was set up by our dean of students, which was really nice. He got a grant from government so that he could get a job for any student that wanted to work, and he had some people from Michigan come down. See, my wife was a social worker, and she used to go in people's homes and help them with whatever problems.
Emery:
Did she teach social work at Tuskegee?
Rogers:
No.
Emery:
What did she do at Tuskegee?
Rogers:
She was like a therapist for children and stuff like that. She still does that. She worked for the county and retired, but now, she has a private business in Fremont.
Emery:
So she was at Tuskegee, and you were doing all this canvassing in Lowndes County. Then, you decided that you'd had enough of Alabama, and then — No. You were tired of the south you said.
Rogers:
We left Alabama and came to California.
Emery:
And so she was happy to leave, too. And when you decided to leave the south, you said, "Well, where shall we go?" And you said, "Let's go back to where your family is?"
Rogers:
No, but I did. I had a lot of professors who came from Berkeley At Tuskegee. Who came from Berkeley, and I really liked them. I was following a lot of the stuff that was going on here, like Mario Savio [of the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement] and all those people. So I said, "Oh. I'd like to go to — " I'd never been to California before. I got to go to Berkeley.
Emery:
So Mario Savio was making a lot of trouble at the University of California. And so you said, "Oh. That sounds like a good place to be."
Emery:
So you decided to move to San Francisco or to where the trouble was, where the next trouble was.
Rogers:
Right, and I have some friends that graduated from San Francisco State. They were in SNCC and were students at Tuskegee. Right after I left, I had my car radio turned to the news, and I get this news thing from Tuskegee about how the students were acting up and holding, not dean of students, but some of the — I forget.
Emery:
Regent? Trustees?
Rogers:
Trustees. Yeah. They were holding the trustees captive. I said, "Oh God." So When I got home, I get this phone call, "We're on our way." I said, "Oh God. Here we go again." They had gotten, taken the Board of Trustees hostage.[Referring to nonviolent protests by several hundred students at Tuskegee in the immediate aftermath of Dr. King's assassination in April of 1968. The students demanded creation of a Black studies curriculum that was more responsive to the needs of Black communities, an end to compulsory Army ROTC enrollment for male students and university complicity in the Vietnam War, and financial aid for low-income students. The trustees were holding a meeting on campus and the protesters nonviolently surrounded the building, refusing to let them leave until they addressed the issues. The police and Alabama National Guard were called in to threaten the students. The incident ended without violence. College administrators shut down the campus and required all student to reapply for admission (in effect expelling the entire student body). Eventually however, in the following years, most of the student demands were accepted and implemented by the Tuskegee administration.]
Emery:
Right. So you were in Berkeley when the Oakland Black Panther Party was being founded and was —
Rogers:
— no, no. When I got here, they were already —
Emery:
Already founded.
Rogers:
— founded. Yeah.
Emery:
Okay. And so what did you know of them, or did you have any interaction with them while you were — in '67, '68?
Rogers:
I had interaction with one person, and his name was Mark Comfort. He lived in Oakland, and he came down [to Lowndes County] to help us out with food and other things. He raised some money and whatnot. While he was in Alabama, he asked us, would we mind if they used the name of the Black Panther Party? We said no [we wouldn't mind]. So they used the name Black Panther Party and took it to another level.I remember one day, I was up at Cody's Bookstore [in Berkeley]. I bought some books. At that time, that area — it was a two-way street. You could drive up Telegraph and then back down Telegraph. I had my car parked outside of Cody's, and I hopped in the car. It was early evening, and I forgot to turn my lights on. I'm driving, and all of a sudden, the cops come. They pull me over. Right? They got me stopped, and they're checking my driver's license and this — . About 10 Black Panthers were walking up the street, and all of a sudden, these 10 guys come running over there, "Hey, brother. What's the matter? What's the matter?" The cops looked at them, and they said, "Ain't nothing the matter." They hopped back in their car and took off.
Emery:
So what'd you think of that?
Rogers:
I liked it. That was right after the guy, the cop got shot, that they said [Black Panther leader] Huey Newton shot there in Oakland.
Emery:
Right. So that was the only interaction you had with the Black Panthers in Oakland, the Oakland Black Panthers?
Rogers:
Oh, no. I used to see [Panther leader] Eldridge Cleaver around Berkeley and stuff, and there were people that I knew through Mark Comfort, the guy that I was telling you about. He was one of the guys that went with them to the state capitol in Sacramento when they had the gun —
Emery:
They were passing legislation that would make it illegal to carry firearms openly.
Rogers:
And they won. What they were really concerned about was carrying firearms in the state house. Remember when they walked [carrying shotguns] through the chambers in Sacramento?
Emery:
I read about it. I wasn't there. I think I was 10 years old in New Hampshire at the time. But yeah, I've, heard about it. And so you were in Berkeley when San Francisco State had its strike [for Black studies] in '68?
Rogers:
Right.
Emery:
Yeah. What kind of activist work were you doing? Were you doing any activist work in '68, '67, '69 in Berkeley, or were you working? Did you become a probation officer then or —
Rogers:
Well, I became a probation officer, but then I went to Lincoln University Law School on Fillmore Street [in San Francisco] — up there at the private law school.
Emery:
Oh, and you were going to law school during '67, '68?
Rogers:
Yes. It was the night.
Emery:
Right, and were you getting involved in any organizing while you were going to law school?
Rogers:
No. I just didn't see anything going on that I was really interested in.
Emery:
The Black Panthers weren't interesting to you enough to get involved, right?
Rogers:
Right. There were a lot of SNCC people like Stokely [Carmichael], and Rap, and James Forman were involved in the Black Panther Party out here, but then, they dropped out. Because there were things going on that they didn't —
Emery:
What didn't they like about — that was going on with the Black Panther Party that they didn't like?
Rogers:
They didn't talk about it. I didn't really have that much contact with them then, but they were in it for a very short time. Then, they just dropped out.
Emery:
But the Black Panthers were part of the strike at [San Francisco] State, right?
Rogers:
No. I don't think so.
Emery:
No? But they spoke. They were invited to speak at assemblies.[Note: The Black Student Union (BSU) organized and led the SF State student strike for Black Studies and nonwhite admissions. The actual walkout commenced after an on-campus speech by former SNCC leader Stokeley Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) who had briefly been associated with the Black Panther Party. Some BSU activists had links to the Panthers, but the Panthers as an organization were not directly involved in the strike. --bh]
Rogers:
Some of the people that came out here from SNCC that were with me at Tuskegee were involved in what was going on here [at SF State].
Emery:
Right, like Bruce Hartford.
Rogers:
Yeah, but I didn't know Bruce then. See? But did you ever meet Scott B. Smith?
Emery:
No.
Rogers:
Okay. Well, he's here now. He just got back from Alabama.
Emery:
Great. Any questions about what we were talking about?
Unidentified:
Are you still in touch with the group that you organized in Alabama and here, you said?
Rogers:
Oh. Definitely. Yeah, and I receive a lot of emails and stuff like that from them. We have an organization here for — It's an organization of SNCC workers who work in the South [referring to BayVets]. Some live in San Francisco. Some live in Oakland. Some live in Berkeley. Yeah, and we meet once a month, usually in Berkeley now. It used to be both San Francisco and Berkeley, but we have a lot of people that are sick like Jean [Wiley]. And Betita [Martinez].
Unidentified:
Is there any talk between you guys about maybe helping Occupy Wall Street, maybe creating some teaching about nonviolent protesting? [Referring to the nationwide Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011.]
Rogers:
Oh. I'm sure that we could probably work something out.
Emery:
But you haven't been talking about it in your monthly meetings, have you? Have you been talking about Occupy Wall Street?
Rogers:
No. See? Because it really hasn't been going on that long. And I wasn't at the last meeting. They had a meeting last Saturday. That was my football game day.
Emery:
Oh. Don't tell them that [laughing].
Rogers:
Oh. No. I told them. Oh. Don't tell them?
Emery:
No, no, no. Don't tell these people that you went to a football game instead of going to your vets meeting [laughing].
Unidentified:
Do you all just reminisce, or do you talk about organizing still?
Rogers:
Oh. We still talk about things that we want to do, and we go into schools, and churches, and libraries, and different places to talk to people. Then, it's also nice for us to sit around, and we can talk to each other once a month and stuff. That's really good.
Emery:
Talk about Obama, and Republicans —
Rogers:
Mm-hmm.
Emery:
— and education reform. Bruce is very much into education reform and working on that.
Rogers:
Yeah, but then, we have to look out for our sisters and brothers that aren't doing as well as [inaudible 01:10:47].
Emery:
Yeah. That's becoming more and more of an issue.
Rogers:
Of an issue, yeah.
Emery:
In the last couple years, right?
Rogers:
Mm-hmm.
Emery:
Just in the last couple years. Yeah. Well, we're very, very lucky that you're still healthy and able to come on your own, drive all the way over here from Oakland and spend the evening with us. We really appreciate it. So thank you, Jimmy.
Rogers:
I really enjoyed coming over here and spending an evening with you.
Emery:
Well, thank you.
Copyright © Jimmy Rogers. 2011
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