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Voices of the Movement - Fayette County, Tennessee

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Voices of the Movement: Fayette County, Tennessee Video courtesy of The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute For Social Change and the University of Memphis

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hello my name is Daphne McFerrin I am the executive director of the Benjamin L hooks Institute for social change at the University method admission is teaching studying at promoting civil rights and social change we are thrilled to bring you the exhibit uplifted vote everybody has a voting story what is yours did it tell the struggle for the right to vote in Lake County Tennessee two of the leaders John in the viola next Aaron my parents let this movement and I'm very proud of their work but they did not do it alone they did it with the help of other activists other app American Cynthia County meaning of who risk their homes and lives for the right to vote in addition students from Northern University and universities in Tennessee with the Fayette County 28 activists in the struggle for the right to vote the movements in 1959 and continued well into the 1980s activists sought to integrate public schools to integrate public facilities including restaurants in the theater in Summerville and in 1969 the New York Times call the Fayette County one of the longest sustained civil rights protests in the nation we hope that this exhibit will inspire you to learn more about the Fayette County movement to protect your right to vote to register to vote the work to make our nation a more just and equal Society thank you and we hope you enjoy the exhibit many times the registration office was moved without any notification and Afro Americans would continue to try to find the registration office in the courthouse already called and one occasion ribbon June and Afro-American minister for the part of the original fake Honda Civic and Welfare League went up to register and it couldn't find the registration office and he asked a white man that you saw in the courthouse people getting registered where is the office registering it and he was told we are registered to you and had to bottom and had to bottom is well-known place where black people were carrot and minced back in the years we could get what we want by putting for Liverpool that's what we do we found out later that was a blacklist circulated around in the business places in Fayette County and in a Jason count as two for you and this Blacklist consisted of names of black people who had registered to vote and the leadership of this holders registration campaign the name was Mark with an a witch Google tell indicated they were troublemakers well it was a disappointment feeling going into the place I have traded all of my days and you tell me I went to the bank first and the bank secretary told me that the bank of couldn't help me I could loan me no money so then I had to try to find where I could borrow some money to make a crop to try to feed my family and I had to mortgage my little farm to borrow $600 tomorrow for $600 then this man that long the $600 he charge interest on it and I had to John he was under take I had to John his burial and I had to put the $600 up I had to pay him back $848 for interest on the $600 for the men from different city they Sweden racing boat here in in Tennessee in Page County anyway and they were a joke us about what was we doing over there if we can ration info and we said find they say you ain't got no pictures you don't rest what is meant to be a sharecropper is that this person is living on the land and 1/2 of what they receive as a crop goes to land on one half crop cotton they get one half of that if it's corn they get a half of that they got a half of everything that you produce on their land and their home given half of their crop is paying the rent for living on the farm it was a bad Arrangement but the people just this was the only way of life they knew those people that were this is what they knew and they settle for what one thing that was bad about it Ministry Acropolis did not could not keep up with what their portion should have been because she had been cases where the landowner with handle all of the transaction of uppercross you pick it out but they tell you where the get to the GNR they take it to the gym to Jen that Connor and they come back and give you whatever they decide to hang to you you don't know whether you getting your fair share you might think you not getting it but at least you didn't get it and you didn't argue with him about it well when they would tow after they harvested the crops that don't need you anymore you got to move they had to go many of them didn't have anywhere to go over there to get off and land and that's when many of them came to the city and said they put me off playing they say I did something I shouldn't have done I registered to vote and I don't have anywhere to go so that's when the kids came into play this idea came up through John he suggested tents I think John had some memory of some of the uses of tense from the military and we didn't have in the civic league to purchase the 10th so we appeal to the nation for help and people sent money in to help us and some people bought and shipped them in. my husband I said that when he said we got the moves that we got the move we better get out and try to find some place to go because it's going to be winter here in a little bit hey so when we go out to look for a place to try to live Define the move to then we find out that every place you went to they turn you down because of the same thing you know and then that wasn't any place to go well and we are there was a church that call the people together they find out that they been put out the cause of that and said that they was going to try to get us some help by getting can't because mr. toad this is Shepard toad had some land he said if they can find maybe shelter at end of something that they can get on and we was thinking like a few days until they can find some place to go that they can just send it up here on my place until they can find a better place well they got the tent for us and they said it down or cold day in November I remember the ground was froze so hard the first night I remember so well the first night that we moved to Tennessee. The ground was just really Frozen real heart and no we just knock the grass down and the husband came up to mr. McFerrin and are they got cardboard boxes and they split those boxes open they sprayed them down on that grass and then we shared a bed up in a little heater to warm by and maybe head a dresser or maybe just for just a little small dresser that could get in there and we had a couple of two or three chairs in around in the air but after we close up for the night in the beginning to get a little warm in there getting the ground again. on a meat and then make cardboard get water come through to the cardboard and we had to get there until we went to bed I just hit the until it get warm enough that that dry out and took it a while not that but they can I but it took it maybe the next day or the next day before we got the card or dried out real good I didn't think there was any trouble you know I didn't take when you're not doing anything wrong that that should be trouble that I didn't think when you ready to vote why trouble could come out of it but I was wrong I was wrong because I so after we got registered to vote did Miss Elizabeth you know he told us that we had to move because of that to know Calvary X and Y and he said that because of decoration voting mess sister Hannah went Miss with that registered voting then you wouldn't have had to move me and her the full kid with you in that tent with cooking that tent which 11th at 10:50 a little bit but in the winter time the temple get like a deep free ice solid Saginaw auto Sizemore on topside when I hey what we never get cold my brother now we went to Allen's farm he had informed and at least five years and we worked it yeah and we found them I was a rental I made a good crop and made a good living and in 1959 I register to vote and they all took the land from me and told me I had to move in December so we at least Rayne was in August when you go to d.c. I will pass deadline Italy for from August, you know how you know you had to move in August but I had to move in December and middle of December and when they told me well found a little house my dad had Randall from John McMahon brother Robin Max man he had an odd mood and I'm still there today and I'm getting a lot of addition onto it and find a person later year later we made contact with Mount Olive Baptist Church offices and they worked that membership in that passed to allow us to use the church whenever they didn't have a use for it and we started meeting there we could accommodate more people there than we could in any space that we had access to myself James Caputo Boyd and Estes went to Washington to talk to the justice department about the situation the justice department John Doe was a steel rice cooker masoner was a top civil rights lawyer in that department they file a suit in Memphis and got in Jump they had a hand in Memphis by making a chill Crawford movie then they lost in Memphis they appeal it to the Sun Snyder Como po332 51 up out of that time they were rude that you could not make the Turner Farm amoo yeah we feel as fade County ins that we have a choice that we should be citizens to register and Boot and any other people do to the boycott they cannot make for cat that was placed against Afro Americans and many of us could not purchase goods and services in Fayette County it was then that John decided rent a little store that his brother operated but the brother had relocated because of the pressure and it was our feeling that if we open that store that many of the music people have to drive out of town to get could be provided there on the local level we started to work only issue of equal a combination for the first time because the civil rights law that said you can't discriminate and restaurants in her no private places of accommodation had been past so the next question was testing that and so in the spring sometime and I think the newspapers will confirm the dates on there of a 1965 Wii had a series of sitting around the town square in Somerville I'm going to walk in and ask to be sure we wanted to show there was okay if a white and black people to walk into a place and everything is going on all over photo it was a really funky little place I mean you wouldn't want to be a member unit saying that why would anybody want to go in there and we went in and the older man who was behind the counter said I'll serve all you but not that they're pointing at me so here goes another out of body experience I say why not I want to have a conversation he says I'm going to kill you hey Richard down behind the counter and I remember thinking okay he's coming up with you either a baseball bat or a gun if it comes up with a baseball bat I'm okay cuz I'm young I can avoid it comes up with a gun I'm out of here game of the baseball bat I have never had kind of non-violence training buy hit the floor but this and he took a whack at me and hit me a glancing blow on the shoulder or something and I was moving my brother bless his heart jumps right on top of it he's going to protect his baby brother he's out there and I hear the bat hit his head the breath coming out of here he's been smacked good I remember thinking oh boy mom is going to be upset and then the next thing I knew with it I knew two things that happen Jerry Jenkins Christine that I think Jerry grabbed the bat out of the guy's hand next thing that happens is in Hardy fry comes roaring into this place all 200 lb of them grabs me grab my brother and say we're getting out of here and have all the quite grateful to Hardy from doing that it was a really good idea to get me out of there and get him out of there and I sort of retreated I could probably back to John store During the period that we were here in Fayette County things were really blowing up in Selma this was the time of the march in Selma and around the events in Selma three people were murdered that was Jimmy Lee Jack send that was Reverend James Reid and there was Viola liuzzo and it shook us up and it caused us a great deal of pain and we decided that we stop work one day and that we would join the members of the community here on the memorial March into town and I would say there must have been three hundred people or so gather to John McFerrin store someone let us in a prayer and the people people were supported by prayer and face at that time and then we fall when did double file line and just started marching down the highway to its town and because we could only be two abreast it was a very long line I don't know how long it went but you know several yards and cars drove by very slowly looking at us they were all very interested but there might have been some catcalls and stuff but there was no there were no Winston the whole thing went without incident we got into town we gathered around the courthouse John McFerrin got up on the steps of the courthouse and he made a speech talk to Dad had terrible violence was and how we all hoped it would end and how our civil rights work was a way of changing things and once again like that first first day when we all held hands and sang We Shall Overcome the funny thing is I barely knew I existed it was like I was part of some much larger organism and on the other hand I had never felt more alive it was a wonderful feeling and it was a sad occasion but but there we were letting people know that we we were going to put up with that schools with we're definitely not equal in those days they were separate all right enough but definitely not equal how many things that we didn't have first of all we went to a split are we starting to school in July because I we had finished chopping cotton but we were starting to school in July and then we will go to school until September and in September it would be time to harvest I picked the cotton but we would have to be out of school from 1st of September until Thanksgiving Thanksgiving was a magic I date that will try to complete everything by Thanksgiving and then we will start back school again the classes were are overcrowded at that time I can remember having a class on a stage and a gymnasium where we had over 100 people in one class and it was just impossible to teach all those students with admin at paper in one cup often times we had to share a books you would take a book home one day and somebody else would take the book home the next day but it was definitely not an equal today so they want in it Jackson and of the textbooks we use well it was music baseball history you never saw a black face also in the community where you grew up you didn't see black people doing certain things for exam when will walk up to the grocery store when the Coca-Cola truck came out of the bread truck came out of milk truck came there they were always white driving his truck so you learn right off that these jobs are only quite and then your textbooks didn't show anything so it it gives you a stigma that black people can't do these kinds of things because we don't see them in the books and we didn't have any television at that time there one in the blacks on television either at that time unless there was some stereotype program like Amos & Andy part of the integrated schools in 1965 I was a senior at that time going had been basically in the in the desegregated school for my freshman sophomore junior and the senior year now proceeding to the all white school the first day the first day truly was a day of I truly do not believe that I nor any of us in and then the be very candid with you it was approximately eight of us that embarked upon that were the the schools were integrated the freshman crash and the senior class was the group that that somehow another was chosen to be the two grades that would be in a great so the 9th and the two great for the appraisal being integrated we met that day Pride of the day of the school starting and his McFerrin and various other members of the black community of the Civic Welfare League activity together and try to give us a feel for what to expect because they had already been told that The Runaway really for us not to be able to succeed that first day because up that first day was a very crucial day they did the white community of the school received that if they you able for The Runaway that day that this would be a failure and that we were determined that we were not going to be turn away for the most part I think that the indigenous kind of leadership that existed here in Fayette County which was pretty unique and so that was a different situation so was it was all so different for somebody that was coming here we weren't his vulnerable then I think because of the focus was not on us it was an indigenous leadership no more we are able to register to vote best

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Voices of the Movement - Fayette County, Tennessee

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