Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

University of Illinois at Springfield
Norris L. Brookens Library
Archives/Special Collections
Cecil A. Partee Memoir
P257. Partee, Cecil A. (1921-1994)
Interview and memoir
14 tapes, 1050 mins., 2 vols., 244 pp., plus index
ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
Partee, Democratic member of Illinois House of Representatives 1957-67 and Illinois
Senate 1967-77, discusses his years in the General Assembly: work with issues such
as civil rights, consumer rights, and crime and correction legislation; legislative,
judicial, and fiscal reform; public aid, health, welfare, and safety legislation; and
work as senate president. Also discusses his years before the General Assembly:
family, employment, higher education, law school and practice, and early politics.
Also recalls his work after the General Assembly as a commissioner in the Chicago
Department of Human Services and as Chicago City Treasurer.
Interview by Horace Q. Waggoner, 1979-81
OPEN
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University of Illinois at Springfield
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Springfield IL 62703-5407
© 1979-81, University of Illinois Board of Trustees

ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
CECIL A. PARTEE
MEMOIR VOLUME I
PREPARED FOR THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL BY THE ORAL HISTORY OFFICE,
LEGISLATIVE STUDIES CENTER OF SANGAMON STATE UNIVERSITY
1982

ILLINOIS LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
107 Stratton Building, Springfield, lllinois 62706
Representative Jacob John Wolf, Chicago, Chairman
Senator William F* Mahar, Homewood, Vice Chairman
Representative Samuel M. McGrew, Galesburg, Secretary
Senators
John A. D'Arco, Chicago
Terry L. Bruce, Olney
William F. Mahar, Homewood
William A. Marovitz, Chicago
Dawn Clark Netsch, Chicago
Frank M. Ozinga, Evergreen Park
George E. Sangmeister, Mokena
Jack Schaffer, Crystal Lake
Ex Officio
Philip J. Rock, Oak Park
President of the Senate
James "Pate" Philip, Lombard
Senate Minority Leader
Representatives
J. Robert Barr, Evanston
Phillip Bianco, Chicago
Glen 1. Bower, Effingham
Peg McDonnell Breslin, Ottawa
Ted E. Leverent, Maywood
Samuel M. McGrew, Galesburg
Everett G. Steele, Glen Carbon
Jacob John Wolf, Chicaco
Ex Officio
George H. Ryan, Kankakee
Speaker of the House
Michael J. Madigan, Chicago
House Minority Leader
ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Cullom Davis, Vice President of Academic
Affairs, Sangamon State University
William L. Day, Former Director, Illinois Legislative
Council; Editor Emeritus, lllinois Issues
David Everson, Director, Legislative Studies Center;
Associate Professor of Political Studies,
Sangamon State University
Gerald L. Gherardini, Associate Director,
lllinois Legislative Council
Samuel K. Gove, Director, Institute of Government
and Public Affairs, University of lllinois
H. William Hey, Director of Research,
lllinois Legislative Council
Dan Holt, Field Serv. Supervisor, State Historical
Library; Adjunct Professor of History,
Sangamon State University
Robert P. Howard, Former State House Reporter
for Chicago Tribune; Author, Illinois: A
History of the Prairie State
Margaret Munn, Hearing Supervisor,
Department of Mental Health
Jack Van Der Slik, Professor of Political Studies
and Senior Scholar, Legislative Studies Center,
Sangamon State University
J. Glenn Schneider, State Representative,
41st Legislative District
Printed by the authority of the State of lllinois
Legislative Council Service Unit Order 820532
July 1982 - 450 copies

ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
PREVIOUS TITLES IN SERIES
Martin B. Lohmann Memoir, 1 Vol. (1980)
Bernice T. Van Der Vries Memoir, 3 Vols. (1980)
Walter J. Reum Memoir, 2 Vols. (1980)
Thomas A. McGloon Memoir, 2 Vols. (1981)
John W. Fribley Memoir, 2 Vols. (1981)
Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir, 2 Vols, (1982)

CECIL A. PARTEE
Illinois House of Representatives. 1957-1 967
Illinois Senate, 1967-1 977

Preface
This oral history of Cecil A. Partee's service in the Illinois General
Assembly is a product of the Illinois Legislative Council's General
Assembly Oral History Program. The oral history technique adds a
distinctive new dimension to the council's statutory responsibility
for performing research and collecting information concerning the government
of 'the state.
Cecil A. Partee was born in Blytheville, Arkansas, in 1921. The story
of his youth is typical of black middle class life in Blytheville during
the 1920's and 1930's. After completing his undergraduate work at
Tennessee State University, he was denied entry to law school at the
University of Arkansas. Instead the state of Arkansas paid his tuition
at Northwestern University where he attained his law degree.
Upon admission to the Illinois bar, Mr. Partee started practice in
Chicago. With the idea of widening contacts for his practice, he
requested committeeman William L. Dawson to assign him a precinct. This
precinct captain assignment started his long-term association with the
regular Democratic organization in Chicago. He was soon offered, and
accepted, a position as an assistant state's attorney.
In 1955, two significant events occurred. First, he married Paris
Angelina Bradley and, second, reapportionment increased Chicago's
representation in the Illinois General Assembly. Mr. Partee was asked
if he would run in 1956 for one of the new positions in the House of
Representatives. He did so and continued in the House for five sessions,
then moved on to serve five sessions in the Senate. While in the Senate,
during the 77th and 79th General Assemblies when the Democrats held
majorities, he served as Senate president.
Mr. Partee's major legislative achievements were in the fields of civil
rights, consumer rights and crime and corrections. His memoir focuses on
such subjects but also touches on many other fields. Particularly instructive
is his recounting of techniques and problems of leadership.

Mr. Bartee retired at the end of the 79th General Assembly, in 1977, to
run unsuccessfully for attorney general a£ the state. He then accepted
the position of commisioner in the Chicago Department of Human Services
where he served until elected to his present position as Chicago city
treasurer.
Readers of this oral history should bear in mind that it is a transcript
of the spoken word. Its informal, conversational style represents a
deliberate attempt to encourage candor and to tap the narrator's memory.
However, persons interested in listening to the tapes should understand
that editorial considerations produced a text that differs somewhat from
the original recordings. Both the recordings and this transcript should
be regarded as a primary historical source, as no effort was made to
correct or challenge the narrator. Neither the Illlnois Legislative
Council nor Sangamon State University is responsible far the factual
accuracy of the memoir, nor for views expressed therein; these are for the
reader to judge.
The tape recorded interviews were conducted by Horace Waggoner between
the fall of 1979 and the spring of 1981. Mr. Waggoner was born in 1924
near Waggoner, a small farm-service community in central Illinois. At
age 18 he enlisted for military service in World War I1 and, as a U. S.
Air Force commissio~ed officer, continued to serve until 1973. Upon
leaving service, he resumed his formal education, achieving a masters
degree in history at Sangamon State University in 1975. Specializing in
the field of oral history, his association with the Sangamon State
University Oral History Office dates from 1976.
Florence Hardtn and Ulanda Buckhold transcribed the tapes. After the
transcriptions were edited by Mr. Waggoner and reviewed by Mr. Partee,
Mrs. Hardin prepared the typescript and compiled the index entries.
Bernadette Emery and James Skufca developed the programming for the
computerized sorting and typesetting used in finalizing the index.
Dorothy Hopkins and Carol Marshall assisted in the pre-interview research.
The Chicago Tribune provided valuable assistance in the research effort.
Mention needs also to be made of Mr. Partee's secretary, Jewel Hodges,
who made the sometimes frustrating task of interviewing an extremely
busy man much more pleasant than it might have been.
This oral history may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be
reproduced in whole or in part by any means, electronic or mechanical,
without written permission from the Illinois Legislative Council, Room 107,
Stratton Building, Springfield, Illinois, 62706.

Table of Contents
Note on page location:
Volume I: pages 1-116
Volume 11: pages 117-244
Preface ............................
TheYearsBefore .......................
Family background - Blytheville, Arkansas - Education -
Job experiences - Tennessee State University - Northwestern
University - Law practice - Precinct captain -
Assistant state's attorney - Ward president - Ward
committeeman - Marriage
The General Assembly Years ..................
Campaign and election - Getting started - Civil rights
legislation - Insurance legislation - Consumer rights
legislation - Crime and corrections legislation - Industry
and labor relations legislation - Elections
legislation - Legislative reform - Fiscal reform -
Judicial reform - Public aid, health, welfare and
safety legislation - Education legislation - Revenue
legislation - Senate president
The Years After . .......................
Attorney general candidate - Chicago Department of
Human Services - Chicago city treasurer - Thoughts on
a political career today
Index.. ...........................
Illustrations following pages 33, 88 and 180
vii

Volume I
SESSION 1, TAPE 1, SIDE 1
Q: First of a11 we would like to get some background information, sir. Where
were you born, sir?
A: Blytheville, Arkansas.
Q: And when were you born, sir?
A: April 10, 1921.
Q: How long did you live at that location, sir?
A: Until I finished high school. I had just turned seventeen when I finished
high school. Then I went away to college and I spent a couple of summers
there since then, but that's about it.
Q: What was your father's name, sir?
A: Charles Cecil Partee.
Q: And was he born in Blytheville also?
A: No, he was born in Meridian, Mississippi* i
Q: Could you give me scme background information about your father's fadl ?
A: My father was a twin and was one of four children. He came to ~rkansasl to
live perhaps sme five or six years prior to my birth. He was a cotton
classer. A cotton classer is one who determines the staple and value of
cotton, once the seed has been removed, for the purpose of evaluating it for
purchase. So cotton classers not only worked with cotton buyers, they would
determine what the value of cotton was by the bale, on the basis of the quality
of the cotton.
f

Q: How did he go about doing this?
A: Pretty much a highly sophisticated kind of knowledge that one gained, I
guess, through experience, He was probably one of the first, and only black
cotton classer that I knew, in the South. He started working with someone and
learned it and apparently learned very well, because I have seen men come to
our house--two buyers would come to our house with a bet as to the value of a
particular piece of cotton and on the basis of his evaluation and statement
they would pay off their bet. Which indicates to me that he was pretty good.
Q: He learned that in Mississippi?
A: I think probably he started in Mississippi, then he moved up to Arkansas.
Qj
Did you know your grandfather, sir?
A: I did not know my paternal grandfather, no, he died prior to my birth. I
knew my paternal grandmother. She came to Arkansas to visit with us when I
was quite small. I just have a very dim memory of her because I was very small,
but I do remember her.
Q: What was your mother's name, sir?
A: My mother's maiden name was Dupree. She was one of ten children, she was
the eighth child. Her father was a drayman, which is like a hauler, a mover,
She was the eighth child out of ten.
Q: And where was she born, sir?
A: Ripley, Tennessee.
Q: Do you know anything further about her family background?
A: Yes, my mother finished high school at sixteen with a 98.6 average. She
was the onlv person in her class and commenced to teach school immediately
thereafter, as was the custom in those days, and garnered all of her college
training in summer schools during the period of time that she was teaching.
Finished college a year after I finished college.
Q: Did she start teaching, then, in Tennessee?
A: She started in Tennessee and came over to Arkansas when she was about
twenty and taught in Arkansas until she married and--well, she taught until
she was sixty-five. She taught about forty-nine, fifty years.
Q: Then your mother and father met in Arkansas?
A: They met in Ark~nsas, right.
Q: What year were they married, do you recall?
A: They must have been married about 1918 or something like that.

Q: You say she taught there near Blytheville?
A: Well, yes, she taught near Blytheville, then she taught in Blytheville
the last, probably, thirty years. She was a county supervisor for either one
or two years, county supervisor of schools. But she taught in Blytheville
most of the time.
4: Are you the oldest in your . . .
A: I'm the only child who survived. My mother and father had a son who was
born probably around 1919 or 1920 who lived to be eighteen months of age a d
who expired with pneumonia just prior to my birth.
Q: Oh. So you are an only child, then?
A: That's correct.
Q: kt's see, was your birthplace in Blytheville?
A: Blytheville, in Blytheville, yes.
Q: In the town itself?
A: In the town of Blytheville, yes.
Q: What's your earliest remembrance of that home there?
A: Well, my earliest remembrance is that we had a house, about a five room
house.in which 1 was born and, at that time, there were no indoor toilets. 1
can remember that because I could remember when I was nine years old we put in
a bathroom and water inside the house. We really didn't have sewers at that
time. We had a septic tank, because there were no sewers in that part of the
town at that time. We had a large yard, about a lot and a half, which I mowed
from the time I can remember until the time I left there.
Q: This was with a push mower, I presume.
A: Oh, yes, the push mower. We had a pagoda out there and a lot of flowers
and had a garden in the back. Chickens, no hogs, but chickens and--%ode
Island Reds and Yellow Buffs.
Q: Oh, is that right?
A: The finest breeds, yes. They were just beautiful chickens. And we always
had a garden. Some pear trees and some plum trees in the back yard and a
peach tree. Yes.
Q: Did you have charge of the garden after awhile?
A: Well, yes. Not really in charge of it. My father took an inordinate
interest in it but I was certainly a willing, and sometimes an unwilling,

helper. In that garden, we had all of the regular kinds of things like white
potatoes and sweet potatoes and bell peppers and hot peppers and beets and
lettuce and beans and all kinds of greens, like collards and mustard,
turnips, squash. All the regular vegetables in it; very, you know, inclusive
kind of garden.
Q: Your mother was in charge of the flowers, I guess, around the place.
A: Yes, more or less. She was favored with the cannas, we used to have a lot
of beautiful cannas and we had Carolina poplar trees along the front of the
yard and hedges, of course, as they do down South.
Q: Yes, and you had to trim the hedges, I presume.
A: Oh, yes, trim the hedges and . . .
Q: Did you start to a kindergarten or did you go right into first grade?
A: I went into a summer school. My mother taught at a summer school out in
the rural area one summer and that was my first, beginning that swmner. Then
I went into the first grade in September.
Q: How Ear was the school house from your home?
A: Oh, about a mile.
Q: That far.
A: Just about a mile, yes.
Q: Did your mother teach at that school?
A: She taught at the same school, yes.
Q: Did she teach first grade by any chance?
A: No, she taught fifth grade and she taught junior high school mathematics
and junior high school literature and she was in charge of the music program
at the school.
Q: Do you remember your first grade teacher?
A: Yes, her name was Miss Lucille Tillman.
Q: What do you remember about her?
A: That she wrote a very fine Spencerian hand and we were not being taught:
block letters as kids are in the first grade now. We had to try to learn to
write as she wrote, which was a little ridiculous for kids in the first grade.
I also remember my second grade teacher had a handwriting style quite her own.

The third grade teacher taught us the Cramer method of writing. The fourth
grade teacher taught us the Palmer system of writing. And the fifth grade
teacher taught the Zaner-Blosser system, a system that I've never even heard
of since, but it's much like Palmer. So, as a result of it, when I got to
the sixth grade, I had an admixture of five different kinds of handwriting
styles and, although my wrfting is fairly legfble, it's really an amalgam of
all those systems. Sometimes I'll write a Cramer "R" and a Palmer "R" when
writing a,word like "hurry" or something. It happens.
Q: Wonder why they didn't have it standardized?
A: I don't know. I'm not sure that they standardize it today, I don't know.
Each teacher just taught their own writing system at that time. I don't know.
So, that's the way it went down.
Q: Were there any particular experiences in the first grade that you recall?
A: None really except the writing experience and learning to read. We had a
book called a primer and it was the story of a young, little boy called Baby
Ray who had one duck and two chickens and three of this and four of that and
all. It was a combination of learning to read and getting some mathematical
orientation at the same time, with numbers.
Q: Was this an all black school?
A: It was an all black school. Through high school.
Q: When did you start history in school? That would be the fifth grade?
A: I suppose the first history came about the fifth grade. We had a bound
book called Old Europe and Young America. And it was really a kaleidoscopic
overview of the history of the world. We went into the Greeks and the Greek
gods, Janus and the gods, the Greek gods and the Egyptians and all of the
cultures on which modem history is founded. But it was presented at a fifth
grade level so that we did have an understanding about it. I'm glad you
should ask it because, if I could go very much progressively forward, to tell
you how much that meant to me, I can remember about five years ago being in
Spain and belng interviewed by about five television stations and thirty-five
newspaper reporters. I was there with a group called the Illinois Association
of Professional Engineers. We were there on sort of an inspectional visit and
they structured this program.
So I made a speech to them there and before I made the speech, well, these
newspaper people wanted to come in to interview me and they asked a lot of
political quesfions which I was able to handle. Then they asked me the simplest
question in the world, which under the circumstances was quite difficult,
and that was "What did I see as the future of Spain." It happened that
Franco was still alive then and the place was, you know, very volatile and
anythlng you said might create an international incident. So I answered them
thusly, I said, "Well, if you don't mind, I will go back to the time I wasi In
fifth grade and I had this book called Old Europe and Young America." I wid,

"I remember reading about the Greeks and the Phoenicians and all of these
people, but the most impressive part, that I think that has some reference to
where we are today, is reading about a young man named Christopher Columbus
who was from a town called Genoa, Italy, who had been all over the world
trying to sell his belief that the world was round and not flat, and he was
rejected wherever he went. Except when he came to Spain and he talked to your
then King, King Ferdinand. And he was about to reject him and then his Queen,
Queen Isabella, came in and said, 'Let's hear this story again!" And he gave
her the story and she believed in it and hocked her jewelry to purchase and
outfit three boats for him, the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria." I said,
"Off he sailed and he discovered the country where I was born." I said, "Now,
that's a long answer," I said, "but the point I would like to make in direct
reference to your question as to what do I see as the future of Spain, I can
only tell you that if everybody in the world rejected Columbus' idea and you
had a King and Queen as long ago as 1492 who believed in him, who had that
kind of vision and that kind of foresight," I said, "I would only think that
your country is destined to have a great future." Thereby obviating the question
as to the political answer they ex~ected at that moment, you see.
Q: Yes.
A: But it is interesting how the backwood parts of your life are there. We
have a lot of facts, I think, in our minds, and it just sort of lanquishes in
the recesses of our minds, that we don't think about from time to time until
there is an absolute need for them to explain or to make a point at the current
time. And you sometimes are very surprised what's in the back pf your
mind, what's there, you know.
There's another example of that I would share with you. About eight years ago,
maybe six, I went to Arkansas, back to visit, and the then governor, who is
now the United States senator, found I was coming and he had a state policeman
to meet me. He told me the governor canceled my reservation at the hotel
because he, the governor, wanted me to stay at the governor's mansion. And I
thought it was very interesting, you know, going back and having lived there
when it was segregated and all and now I'm the guest of the governor. And when
I was standing on the front porch at the governor's mansion waiting to be
admitted, an incident came back to me, which had happened some forty-five,
fifty years before, of when I was eight or nine years old and I went to this
lady's house in Ripley, Tennessee, at the request of my grandmother to pick up
something. And it was a white woman and she said, "Who are you?" And I said,
"I'm Mrs. Dupree Lee's grandson." And she said, "Well, boy, get your little
butt around to my back door." She said, "No niggers come to my front door."
Now, I had forgotten that until I was standing on the front door of the
governor's mansion, forty-five, fifty years later and I remembered the inci--
dent. That was the first time I'd ever remembered it since it happened.
It's just very--kind of interesting.
9: Yes, sir. Are there any other incidents from your school life that have
popped up like that in later life?

A: No. None as dramatic as that. Had a normal kind of background, a small
town kid. I always had some kind of a little job either cleaning up an
insurance office or working in a hotel or shining shoes or picking cotton
or working in the new ground or whatever was honest and legitimate, I had
some sort of job.
I delivered newspapers, both the dailies and the weeklies. I do remember
that when I got the first job as a daily carrier in my hometown, I was the
first black kid who had been given opportunity to deliver them. But they
did a thing to me that was, well, interesting to say the least. There is
another way of characterizing it, I prefer to say interesting. All the white
carriers were on commission. The paper was fifteen cents a week and when
they collected fifteen cents they remitted nine cents and kept six cents
for themselves. They did not give me that same opportunity. They suggested
to me that I took out X number of papers a week and I paid nine cents for
each paper. What I collected they didn't care, I just had to pay them nine
cents for each weekly paper I took out, which made me an independent contractor
at about ten or eleven years old. So it has not hurt me. I suppose
at that point I was a little upset that I would be treated differently but
actually, it probably helped me because it made me a better kind of an entrepreneur
than if I had been on a salary.
Those are the kinds of things that you think about sometimes as being just
so wasteful of talent, you know. It reminds me of so many scholarship
opportunities for people who came along in my age who were not given them who
perhaps could have made a substantial contribution to the growth and development
of this country. It seems that there are some other countries, particularly
Russia, that make sure that people who have some mentality get a chance
to use it for the benefit of the country, you know. They make sure that they
get to school and that they do some things that they wouldn't do if nobody
gave them a push.
Q: Yes, sir. You mentioned working a new land. What is that?
A: Well., in Arkansas, there were always areas where there were trees and they,
you know, would dynamite the trees and you would clean out the underbrush for
the land to be put into agriculture pursuits. Always a lot of new land, they
called it new ground.
Q: Yes, I see. (pause) ~et's see, when would you have first taken civics
in school, sir?
A: I probably took civics, I guess, in the sixth grade. Yes, we had civics
in the sixth grade and then again, about eleventh grade, we took what was
called American Government, Civics was basically, at the grammar school level,
an orientation to the governmental process without any real emphasis on all
the nuances of government but an overview of what government was about and
how it operates.
Q: Your mother was county supervisor of schools. Was that an elective office?

A: No, it was appointed. At that time, they had a dual school system, a white
school system and a black school system. They had a superintendent for all
schools and they had a supervisor, one for the black schools and one for the
white schools. There were about seventy-five black schools in our county.
We're a large county. As a matter of fact, the county was so large they had
two county seats. Pretty large county.
Q: When did you first become familiar with the government of the county there?
A: Well, I'm not so sure that I really had any real familiarity with the
county government. I knew and recognized who the elected officials were. I
knew the mayor and the chief of police and the chief of the fire department
and--that was about as far as my knowledge went as to who the people were. My
father was always interested in the mayor's campaign. He would always have a
candidate that he was supporting and that kind of thing. But 1 was not overly
aware of it.
Q: Did your father hold office at any time?
A: Q1, no. No.
Q: Was he a Democrat at that time?
A: He was a Democrat, yes.
Q: Was your mother's interest also in the Democratic party?
A: Urn, I suppose, but whatever her interest was, it was basically kind of
submerged. There was never any real active participation. She voted but--
not really involved in any kind of election, touting any candidates or things
of that sort, no.
Q: Could you describe what life was like in Blytheville when you were quite
young ?
A: Well, it was just a small town when I was quite young. By 1930, when I was
nine years old, it was a town of six thousand people. It was, in one sense,
progressive. They had the first radio station in Arkansas, even including
Little Rock and all the larger towns. It was segregated and we had a school,
You went to school and you went to church and many of your teachers were also
people who taught in the school.
The church offered a lot of opportunities to participate in plays or to say
speeches. We had programs on Mother's Day, on Christmas, on Thanksgiving.
Had three or four programs a year at the church where you would have an opportunity
to say a poem or something that was appropriate for that particular
holiday.
I got involved quite young in what has turned out to be public speaking. My
mother belonged to the Arkansas Teachers Association. They used to have what
they called oratorical contests and when I was six years of age I was taught

and said, in one of the contests, Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life," which is
about an eight-stanza poem which I was able to do at six. I can remember
going to Little Rock to the teacherst meeting and they had this oratorical
contest and I said that poem and a girl said a poem called, "Is It Because
I'm Nobody's Child?" The girl was given first place and I was given second
place and two persons contested the judgest decision and, as a consequence,
there was a compromise and they gave goth of us first place. One of those
two persons was the head of the English Department at Dunbar High School, and
the other was a black lawyer.
It was the very first time I had ever met a lawyer who was black. I suppose--
it might have been the first time I ever really met a lawyer, I'm not sure.
It was very interesting to me. He took an interest in me and the next day
he took me down to the area where his office was and introduced me to various
people at his office and at his barbershop and places of that sort. So, I
guess, really, that was the first time I had seen a lawyer and I guess maybe
in the back of my mind that has always stuck out.
Q: What was his name?
A: His name was William A. Booker.
Q: And this was in Little Rock.
A: In Little Rock, yes.
Q: How did you go to Little Rock? By train?
A: Oh, no, we drove in those days. We drove over there.
Q: What kind of car did you have?
A: First car we had was a 1930 Ford, cost $625.00.
Q: My goodness, (laughs)
A: We thought that was all the money in the world. We had to buy it for the
time that my mother became county supervisor because she needed a car to get
to the various schools in the county.
Q: What do you remember about Mr. Booker's office?
A: It had a lot of books in it. That's about as much as I can remember. It
had a lot of books and--he had a secretary and she was a very charming lady
and that's about all I remember about the office. I was only six years old.
Q: Yes. Did he describe anything about being a lawyer to you at that age
that stuck with you?
A: I'm not sure that there was any real description. He introduced me to
another lawyer there whose name was Scipio Jones. I remember meeting Mr.

Jones. I can remember that we went down to the barbershop where Mr. Booker
goes and there was a fellow there, his barber, who would always say--you
would say to him, "How are you?" Be would say, "First rate, first rate,"
you know. So Mr. Booker told me, said, "Now, when you go in and he asks you
'Bow are you,' you say, 'first rate.' You'll really get to him." It was kind
of funny. I do remember that.
Q: Yes, sir. Did you travel much in those early days, other than Little Rock?
Do you recall?
A: Well, we would go up to there and we would go in and out of Memphis.
Memphis was about sixty-five, seventy miles from my hometown. We would go to
Memphis to see plays or things of that sort. I remember particularly seeing
Ben Hur as a movie in Memphis. On occasion, we would come up to St. Louis
which was about two hundred and fifty miles away. My mother had a brother
there. We came up to Toledo, Ohio, one summer when my mother attended the
University of Toledo that summer. And we spent some time in Chicago that
summer visiting relatives here.
My mother sent me up on the bus in 1934 to see the World's Fair. I guess I
was thirteen. That was the second year of the World's Fair. And 1 remember
she--we had about six or seven dollars and she put it in, see (simulates
putting money in pocket), the right pocket, and then she pinned it in, then
put me on the bus with the side with the money toward the window so nobody
would steal it. (laughter) I spent the summer here visiting a relative and
seeing the World's Fair. I was thirteen.
Q: Was this a relative on your father's side?
A: On my mother's side.
Q: Do you remember any of the uncles and aunts on your mother's side?
A: Yes, there was Aunt Birda, who was my mother's oldest sister, who too was
a school teacher and I can remember one surmner--she lived about five miles
away from Mrs. Haley, who was Alex Haley's mother, and they were sometimes
competitive for summer school jobs. I can remember one year that Mrs. Haley
and her daughter sought a two-teacher school and my aunt, Aunt Birda, and
her daughter sought that same school and the school board sought to compromise
it by saying, "We'll take one from either family," and neither one of them
would go. They said, "No, it's either all or nothing,'' so they got somebody
else even in that situation. That was my mother's oldest sister.
Then there was an Aunt Fanny, who lived in Toledo, Ohio, that we visited that
summer that my mother went to school there. And then there was an Aunt Ruth
who lived over in Arkansas and she was the one that my mother lived with
originally when she came over to Arkansas to teach. There was an Aunt Geneva,
who also was a teacher, whose husband was a teacher and principal of a school.
Then there was an Uncle Luther who worked at a shoe store in St. Louis, as I
remember, and who also was involved in some other activities, with a game
called "policy."

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Q: Oh?
i
'1 A: And then I had a--let's see, I don't remember any more of her brothers or
sisters--there was one named Howell who died before I was born--but there were
II
ten of them. Oh, then there was an Aunt Neppy who taught for a period. She
i lived in Dyersburg, Tennessee. All of them, all of my mother's sisters
1 learned to play the piano--they actually learned on an organ that they had at
their house. None of them had music lessons, they just learned to play and
just handed down to one or other. Later, they all learned to read music but
I they originally didn't.
; Q: Did you learn an instrument at an early age?
A: My mother gave me piano lessons when I was about eight, nine years old. I
showed an abysmal lack of talent for it and, ch., within six months or so, that,
was all over. Then a lady had a nephew, for whom she had bought a violin, who
wouldn't practice and the lady brought the violin over to me and said she would
give it to me. So she gave me the violin and I took lessons from the Catholic
sisters there for about a year. When 1 started to learn to play fairly well,
the lady came back and took the violin away and gave it back to her nephew. We
weren't able to purchase another one so that was the end of my violin lesaons.
Very interestingly, I went to a man, a white man, there ro take violin lessons
and he refused to give them to me, you see, a black boy, violin lessons. And
that is when I went to the Catholic sisters who gave me the lessons. Catholics,
of course, in my hometown, were almost as verboten as blacks, you know,
in those days. Particularly in the South, the other white people weren't
very high on Catholics, but those people were just very wonderful to me aad
gave me the lessons and I enjoyed them.
Q: When you visited in Chicago for the Fair, which relative was it that you
visited there?
A: I stayed with one af my mother's nephews, Aunt Neppy's son, whose name was
Claudius Wills.
Q: What did you think when you arrived in the bus here in Chicago?
A: Well, it was the largest place I had seen-at an age that I could really
appreciate it, because I had been to Chicago before when I was about four or
five. I did remember the house and, when I got to the house, I remembered it.
They had a very lovely home on Champlain Avenue. I enjoyed it, it was a very
fine neighborhood. In that block where he lived, most of the people were
professionals, teachers and social workers and postal employees. There was a
lawyer across the street who had three children, oh, a couple of them right
at my age. They had lovely homes and had recreational areas in the basement
with a pool table and stuff of that sort. That was just another kind of
exposure for me. I had never seen black people live as well as those people
were living. So it was very interesting and enlightening.

Q: What part of Chicago was that?
A: It was 47th and Champlain, in the 4700 block south on Champlain Avenue.
Q: What did you do at the Fair?
A: Just saw the exhibits and took some of the rides and that kind of thing,
nothing that I can focus on as being more important than anything else. But
it was something I had never seen. It was a huge kind of thing. In my
hometown, all I had seen were, you know, carnivals that came to town or the
circus which came once a year, that kind of thing. But to see all of this
mass of people and all this activity, of course, was very interesting.
Q: Did you see anything else in Chicago during that trip?
A: I went to the museums and that kind of thing. Spent some time at the beach
and swimming and, you know, that kind of stuff, just what a kid would do in
the summertime.
Q: How long a trip was it, about two weeks?
A: I guess I was here about two, three weeks, something like that. Yes. I
can remember one thing. It's so funny how you--I remember my cousin's wife
fixed me a lunch. In those days they, they would give you a lunch in a shoe
box. There was chicken and apples and boiled eggs and that kind of thing and
my cousin and I forgot the lunch and when we got on the bus to go back home,
we realized that we had left the lunch at home. And that has been--let's
see, thirteen, fifty-eight--that's been forty-five years ago and I still
remember it.
Q: Yes, it's funny how things stick out. (laughter)
A: 1sn't it?
Q: Yes, sir. You mentioned Mrs. Haley, which brings up the "roots" business.
Have you had any desire to go back in that "root" sort of thing to find your
ancestry?
A: Well, yes. As a matter of fact, the summer before last, we had a family
reunion down in Dyersburg, Tennessee. Actually, home is Ripley but Dyersburg
was more convenient. It's twenty-five miles from Ripley, but there's a
Holiday Inn there that would accommodate us so we went back there. There were
about fifty people from the family who were there. One of my cousins, who is
now a retired teacher and a retired supervisor of schools, put together a
booklet called Roots of Our Family. One of the most interesting things was
that she had gone backto Book 6 in Hayward County, Tennessee, to find a wedding
certificate for my grandmother and grandfather. They were married on
March 13 in 1874. They found the wedding certificate and we were very proud
that they found that, because so many families aren't able to find that kind
of thing. I suppose many of the families didn't--maybe some didn't get married.
But they were married and had these ten children.

So the whole family relationship and the whole family reunion was very significant
because I got a chance to see a lot of the younger people in my
family. One cousin, she would be my second cousin, has a couple of kids--they
live in South Carolina, her husband's a dentist--and I just looked at her
little girl, who was nine, about nine, ten years old. How very sophisticated
she was and how much she expected good service in a hotel and, you know, just
things that at my age I would never have had.
I remember she said to the waitress, who happened to be white, she said, "Dear,
my sherbert is melting." She said, "They probably left it out too long in the
back. It isn't your fault." She said, "But could you get me a fresh one,
dear?" And when the white lady said to her, "Yes, ma'am," I said, "My goodness,
things have really changed here," you know. And I asked my mother,
"Would I have had that kind of sophistication at that age?" She said, "NO,
we would never have been able to find out because, when you were that age, we
wouldn't have been here with this kind of service." It wouldn't have been
possible even to come in the place.
So, it was interesting just watching the growth and development of America as
reflected through the youngsters in our family and what their expectations
are in contradistinction to what ours were at the same time. So, it was kind
of interesting. So, we had that roots thing and we propose to have another
one next summer.
My mother, incidentally, is the only surviving child of the ten, which makes
her the matriarch of the family. She lives in St. Louis and she is eigbtyseven
now. The original ten are all gone, but her.
Q: What was the denomination of the church that you belonged to there?
A: It was Baptist.
A: You say both your mother and your father were active In the church?
A: Oh, yes.
A: Did either of them enter the preaching at all?
A: No, no one was a preacher. My mother played for the choir for a number of
years. My father was simply a deacon; he was not a minister, no.
Q: Do you remember any particular social activities they had there? Did they
have annual affairs of any sort?
A: Oh, yes, they had annual meetings. I spent a lot of summers with my
grandmother over in Tennessee and there was always some sort of church convention
or something where all the ladies would bring pies and cakes and
chickens and all kinds of meats and all kinds of things.
My own church, we had a divisionalized Sunday school and I was superintendent

of the junior division and then the intermediate division. I never became
superintendent of the senior division, but the first two I was. We went to
Sunday school, then eleven o'clock service, and then, in the afternoon, they
had what they called BYPU, which was the Baptist young people's training
union. That was another kind of outreach to get kids to church. So I went
to church three times a day on Sundays, yes. Morning service, Sunday school,
and BYPU.
Q: How did you come to be selected as the leader of the groups there?
A: Oh, I don't know. The senior superintendent would appoint the people, maybe
I showed some leadership qualities, I suppose, and that's how it happened,
I guess.
SESSION 1, TAPE 1, SIDE 2
Q: Was there any time that you thought about working toward one of these
leadership positions?
A: No. No. No, I was not in any way aggressive about that. I just went to
Sunday school and studied my lessons and was able to articulate them well, so
I was just chosen. I didn't seek the spot in any kind of way, no.
Q: Were there any other kind of organizations besides the church that you
belonged to in your youth?
A: Yes, we had what we called the FPA, which was the Future Farmers of
America. My hometown, a small town, was very much agriculturally oriented.
Everybody there had farms that were all around and people who lived in the
town also worked on farms, as well as in the industry within the city. In
high school, you took agriculture and we had an excellent organization called
Future Farmers of America. I think that's now called New Farmers of America,
NFA, but at that time, I think there was a division between black and white
and we were FFA, Future Farmers, and the others were New Farmers--Farmers of
America, I don't know what it was. But anyway, there was a difference and we
belonged to the black group which was either Future Farmers of America or
New Farmers of America. We would have meetings throughout the county. That
was probably the one club sort of thing I was involved in in high school, at
the high school level. That, and the Audobon Club.
Q: Yes, I belonged to FFA when I was a boy and had a dairy project. Did you
have a project--with the chickens, perhaps?
A: We had a project--ours mostly was garden.
Q: Gardening.
A: Yes, gardening, more or less, because, you see, we lived in this town
rather than on a farm, so we had something that we could do. There was sort of

a tie-in between that and what we called manual training. We had a manual
training shop in our high school and you learned to make small household
items. With coping saws and this sort of thing, you would make something
like a hall tree or what they called a rack for a newspaper stand, footstools,
and those kinds of things, we used to make that. And then, one or two weeks
during the year, they would switch off; the girls would take shop and the boys
would go into the domestic science classes.
Q: Oh'? Did you learn to cook?
A: No, not very well. (laughter)
Q: Do you remember any of the specific projects in the shop there that you
had made?
A: Yes, I remember making a hall tree and I remember making a foot stool and
I also took a plywood and made a newspaper rack, where you would put your
newspapers and magazines.
Q: Do you enjoy working with that type of . . .
A: Not really, no, besides I had little manual talent.
Q: Did you hold leadership in that organization at any time?
A: Yes, I was either president or vice-president, I can't remember. I do
remember I was president of my senior high school class. I was salutatorian,
a girl was valedictorian. There was a very narrow margin between us, but
she was valedictorian and I was salutatorian.
Q: How were those positions selected? Was that by election by the student
body ?
A: No, no, by your grade point average.
Q: What courses did you like best in high school?
A: Mathematics and English.
Q: Who was your mathematics teacher?
A: Professor M. M. Wilburn. He also was my Latin teacher. I had three years
of Latin and the fourth year we took a course called Latin derivatives which
is really a vocabulary building course. We just took Latin words and we took
the stems of Latin words and built the English words from them. It was really
a good base for vocabulary. I can remember we used to have fun, you know,
and say--I remember saying to my mother one day, "You should have been downtown
to see the conflagration consume numerous edifices." And, very shortly thereafter,
she said to me one morning, "Arise my son, the nocturnal illuminator
has wended its way into oblivion. That means, 'get up! "'

Q: I see. (laughter)
A: So we just learned words and enjoyed words and enjoyed saying them.
There is one very interesting thing about schooling. When I first took
geography my father said, "You're taking geography." I said, "Yes." He
said, "What are they teaching you?" I said, "Well, they teach us the states
and they teach them by regions like the northeastern states and the north
central states and the south central states and we learn what the products
are and what they do in those states and so forth." "Okay," he said, "what's
the capital of Maine?" I said, "The capital of Maine? I don' t know, sir ."
He says, "They're not teaching you anything. You mean you don't know the
capital of Maine?" He said, "The capital of Maine is Augusta and it's on the
Kennebec River." Then he went right through the states giving the capital
and whatever body of water it was on and I came to find out that that is how
they taught geography when he was a boy. They taught them the capitals, you
had to know the capitals of every state, and whatever water or tributary of
water it was on. Really, that was geography and actually they may not have
had a great deal of knowledge about what they did there or where it was
located in the . . . So anyway, to make sure that I would know that also, he
went out and bought me a jigsaw puzzle of the United States and I learned to
put it together. So, you would, of course, learn to localize the states and
how they interfaced with the other states. So that was how he supplemented
my geography because he just didn't want me to not know the capitals of those
states. I still don't know whether it was Pierre or Bismarck--one of them is--
I think Pierre is North Dakota and Bismarck is South Dakota, or vice-versa,
I'm not sure. At least, I know that there is that difference.
Q: Was your father a stern taskmaster?
A: I would say he was not overly, overly but he expected you to learn and
he expected you to do things. I can remember when I finished high school and
he bought me a bow tie, one that you tied yourself. I was just enamored of
it, it was such a pretty little tie. And then, he said, "Now, I'm going to
teach you how to tie it." And he taught me and he would take it loose and show
me again, take it loose--he did it about three or four times and took it
loose. Then he went in and sat down and got his newspaper and he said, "Now,
you tie it." And I was struggling with it and struggling with it and finally
I said, "Dad, I can't do it." He said, "Well, if you can't wear your tie, you
can't go to the dance tonight." So I learned to tie it and I--now I can tie
them in the dark, I don't need anything else. But to say stern, I don't know.
He was a person who believed in what he believed in and he expected you to
make a contribution, he wasn't for a lot of "lollygagging," you know. He
expected you to do something, that was all.
Q: Did he use the strap very often?
A: I think maybe my father whipped me once, or maybe twice, in his life. My
mother was a great deal more frequent in that area.
Q: Oh, is that right? (chuckles)

A: And my grandmother. My grandmother, when I would spend the summers over
there, gave you the lickings with peach tree switches. The psychology that
they used, particularly my grandmother, was just great. You see, you would
have to go pick a switch. She would send you out to get it. Now, that's
psychological really, you going out to get something that you know you're
going to get a licking with. You also know that you have got to get something
strong enough for her to not reject it, because she is going to send you back,
but if it is strong enough, that means that the licking is going to be more, -
more memorable. But she believed in that kind of discipline and I don't think
it hurt me. And my mother the same, I don't think it hurt me at all.
The thing about my mother's whippings, she let them pile up, you know, little
things you would do. I could hear her say, "And you remember the time you did
something,'' and she would just keep telling you of the various things you
did. She could remember them all, you know.
Once I went to a carnival and 1 won a buggy whip throwing baseballs at milk
bottles and my mother whipped me with that buggy whip once. Now that, to me,
was just really upsetting because it was my buggy whip and I just didn't
think she ought to lick me with my own buggy whip, but she did. But I
respected her wishes. I didn't get that many, but I got a few.
Q: What other types of entertainment did you have in Blytheville?
A: Well, we played normal kid games. We shot marbles, we played with ropes,
we made our own kites and flew them, we made our slingshots and shot: at birds
and played baseball and basketball. One summer, one of our teachers went to
Hampton Institute out in Virginia and came back and introduced us to tennis.
We had a vacant lot there and we cleared it off, sort of a neighborhood project,
cleared it off of weeds and put up some chicken wire at either end and
put in a tennis court. We played tennis. Bought a racket from the S. S.
Kress store for fifty cents and we played tennis,
Q: Which sport did you like most, sir?
A: Which sport? I suppose maybe, at that point, baseball was probably the
sport that I liked most; but by high school, I played basketball. I made the
basketball team. I could never make the football team, I wasn't big enough.
I tried, though.
Q: What position did you play in basketball?
A: Forward. Halfback in football. I remember the day that my career ended.
I was practicing and I went off tackle and saw that hole there and when I got
in that hole, two guys hit me from either side, both of whom weighed at least
forty pounds more than I did and I was just like that. (presses hands together)
(laughter) And I said, "Well, this is not for me." But I stayed with
the team. I could kick, so they would put me in on fourth d m to kick, but I
couldn't handle the other part of it.
Q: Did you have a good basketball team in high school?

A: We had a fairly good basketball team. We went to the state tournament
two or three years. We never won, but we got very close to third place once.
We played for third place once and got beaten. Most of the teams that won
were teams that had available to them gymnasiums. We played outdoors.
Q: Oh?
A: In my, I guess maybe, junior or senior year, they permitted us to use the
armory hall there for basketball. Our fortunes improved a great deal after
that because we were getting accustomed, you know, to playing on the floor.
So, I played basketball all the way through high school.
Q: Where did they hold the state tournaments?
A: In Pine Bluff, Arkansas, at the Arkansas State College. It was a black
college. State supported school. It's now a part of the University of Arkansas,
a division now of the University of Arkansas, but at that time it was
strictly an all-black school.
Q: Do you recall anything about the trips over there?
A: Yes, we would always drive and, in those days, you never went very far
without somebody having a flat and putting boots in and the old kind of
patches. I remember when the hot patch came along, we thought that was
really an improvement. You probably remember that.
Q: Yes, sir.
A: Yes. But we would normally have a couple of cars and we would drive over,
stay at the college in the dormitories.
Q: Was that as much fun as the playing?
A: Oh, yes. Sure. It was a lot of fun to get away over to Pine Bluff which
is about, probably, two hundred and twenty-five miles from my hometown.
My hometown is in the extreme northeastern part of the state. We're right
under the Missouri boot heel, just six miles from the Missouri line. That,
too, was an experience, living that close to another state because, when I
got to the legislature, T remembered the differential between what various
states had in terms of taxation. (takes paper and pen and draws map) Now,
here is the baot heel of Missouri and here is Arkansas here, and we were
right up here, six miles from Missouri. So on Sundays, we would drive up to
Missouri to fill our gas tank.
Q: Oh?
A: Yes, because the gas was about five cents a gallm cheaper, because the
taxes were less. Of course, you know it was a matter of mathematics whether
you really saved. The tanks only held ten gallons at that time and you would
probably have a few gallons when you went up there and you would buy your gas.

But I think it was more or less a Sunday outing. Everybody after church
would take a little outing on Sunday. So, we would go up there and buy the
gas.
I guess that was my first look at consumer economics, what it means, realizing
that taxes vary. Now, when I went to Tennessee in college, Tennessee is a
state that is about ninety miles wide all the way across and about four hundred
and fifty miles long. Tennessee borders on about seven or eight other states.
So, if you lived in the very center of the state, you were only forty-five
miles from another state one way or the other. For a long time, as a result
of that, Tennessee did not have a sales tax. Because most of the people on the
peripheral edges went across to the next state to buy, If the taxes were less
over there.
I remembered that when we had problems. You'd come in with a particular
program for taxation and a legislator from Danville or from Moline or Rock
Island, who were on the peripheral edges of this state, would be very concerned
about hurting the merchants within the state because of people's free
accessibility to other states where they had a lesser tax. Well, we have had
that problem with Indiana, for example, with cigarettes. People go over there
to buy them by the cartons because they're so much cheaper in Indiana. We've
even had to pass some laws to prohibit bringing in more than X numbers of
cartons.
Q: When was your first date?
A: My first date?
Q: Yes, sir.
A: Oh, I don't know. I guess when I was maybe fourteen or so. I developed
an interest in this little girl who was two years younger than I, and two
years behind me in school. We would go to our what we call a "rally." We
would have a "rally" once a year where all the schools competed in mathematics,
English, history. They had a track meet in connection with it, also. She
was a very good speaker. As a matter of fact, when I left home in 1938, it
was the last time I saw her until last spring.
Q: Oh?
A: She was, I guess, my first date and the puppy love thing. She is now a
Ph.D. and is a dean of a college down in Florida and I was invited down there
last year to address that school. That was the first time I had seen her since
I was seventeen. I had not seen her in forty years--I was fifty-seven last
year, so I had not seen her in forty years. It was a very interesting thing to
renew our acquaintance. She has since, of course, married, has a family; so
do I. So, that was probably my first date. She was just a very lovely little
girl and we went to the movies and things like that.
9: This "rally," was that just within the Blytheville area?

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Q: Was this black and white?
A: No, just black.
Q: Where did they usually hold these?
A: Normally at Oceola which is about eighteen miles south of my town, because
it was a little more central. My town is up in one end of the county,
Normally at Cteola.
Q: You say they had a track meet also?
A: A track meet was a part of it also.
Q: Were you involved in that?
A: I used to run the hurdles. Low hurdles.
Q: Were you any good at it?
A: Pretty good. Pretty good. Won some prizes.
Q: So, this would be a daily affair, I guess. You would go down in the
morning once or twice a year?
A: Go down in the morning and come back late that evening, yes. And they had
some really interesting kinds of things like you would have speed calculation.
Put a group of figures on the board and the kids would walk up and they would
say, "Go!" and they would have to do them with speed, totaling them up.
Q: &, I see, mathematics, huh?
A: Yes, for mathematics. You would have spelling contests, first grade,
second grade, third grade, right through the whole sphere. Then they would
have what they called either declamation contests, that would be people saying
poems in the lower grades, and then for the high school, it would be oratorical
contests. I remember one of the ones I had was a poem called the
"New South." William--oh, what was his name? It's something--William O'Grady,
O'Grady is the last name, who wrote a beautiful kind of speech after the Civil
War. You know, what does he find? He finds his house in ruins, his farms
decimated. It's a story of what a Southerner found when he came back from the
war after the war was over. I just remember that was one of the orations that
we did. It was all on a competitive basis with people judging you on memory,
articulation, the whole thing, you know.
Q: Was there any debate involved in it?
A: Well, we did not have any debates as a part of that "rally," but we used to
have debates in our high school and they would give us some subject that,
really, there was no answer to it. For example, I remember once when we had

a debate on , "What is most destructive, fire or water?" Well, of course,
there is no real answer but the idea was to inculcate in you the desire to do
research. So you would have to go to the library and look up the various
things that you would then debate, as to which was the more destructive. So,
we had debates and they always gave you a subject that was, almost, incapable
of having any final answer. But that wasn't the point, the point was to get
you to do the research and the study and to give it in a convincing fashion.
Q: How was it organized? Were you within the English . . .
A: Part of the English department, yes. Part of the English department.
Q: It was a team, though, that was set up, like two teams?
A: Yes, like two on each side or something of that sort, yes. Two or
sometimes three.
Q: Did y 4 deb.ate before the school?
A: Before the school body, student body? Yes.
Q: Did you enjoy that sort of thing?
A: Oh, I really enjoyed it. It was great. Taught you how to look up things,
how to present them, how to knock down the points of others and how to minimize
the strength or impact of what the other person was saying. It was
great, really great for us.
Q: What kind of resources did you have? Your own library in the school there@
Gas it a good one?
A: No, not really. For a long period of time, we did not have access to the
white library, you know. I say white library, it was a library that belonged
to the city. There were times when you couldn't get in there, but I finally
was able to start drawing books out of there, eventually.
Q: Was this just in your case? Or was it . . .
A: No. No, that was just for everybody. Nobody could get in. What happened
was, this woman, who was the superintendent of schools, found out that I
couldn't get books up there and she went up there and raised hell about it.
She said, "Well, you let these kids have the books." So, I started getting
them and then others, you know, started going in to get them. She gave me my
first book--first
present anyone ever gave me of a book, was that: white woman.
Her name was Mrs. Willie A. Lawson. Incidentally, she later became the state
superintendent of schools for the State of Arkansas, first woman.
Q: Did you own many books when you were . . .
A: Yes, my family always gave me books. I always had some books. We had, you
know, a fair library in our school and I read everything I could get my hands

on. My mother and dad used to give me books at Christmas and birthdays and
that kind of thing. Not always just toys.
Q: So you liked reading very much, then.
A: Very much. And still do.
Q: Let's'see, were you involved in plays, dramatics, in any way?
A: Yes, we had dramatics there in high school and also, when I was in college,
I was a member of the Players Guild and also a member of the debating team
when I was in college. be of the motivations for the college was that--the
school had some formal dances and I didn't have a tuxedo, but if you made the
debating team, the school furnished you a tuxedo.
Q: Oh! Well! (laughter)
A: So that was a part of my motivation to get into it in college. But I
always enjoyed debating. It's always been a very interesting kind of thing
for me.
Q: Do you remember any of the plays in high school that you took part In?
A: Well, we had a play that we did, East Lynn. And what were some of the
others, I don't . . . Death Takes a Holiday, we did that in high school and
in college. I don't remember the names of any of the rest of them.
SESSION 2, TAPE 2, SIDE 1
Q: Sir, what I would like to do, if we could, is spend some more time on
Blytheville and your life in Blytheville.
A: Okay.
Q: What was your first job there, first paying job?
A: I guess my first paying job was selling newspapers.
Q: Yes. You talked about that the other day.
A: No, that's another experience. That was the daily papers. Z first sold
weekly papers, the ones that came out of Chicago, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh.
They were black papers and we sold them on the weekends. They were weekly
editions and I started writing a column in those papers so that I could say to
people, "Your name's in the paper,'' and they would buy one. (laughter) They
had news from all over, all these little towns where they sold their papers
down South. I wrote a column in all of them, just a little penny-ante news
about different things. As a consequence, people would buy them because
people never got their name in the paper in those days, unless they killed

somebody or something foul. So, had a little column, "Mrs. So-and-so had a
party, a birthday party, or a grandson came to visit from Oceola," or something,
you know.
Q: How old were you at this time?
A: Oh, about nine, ten, something like that.
Q: What was your deadlbe for getting your copy in?
A: Well, you would have to get it in by Tuesday, which meant it usually had
to go out Sunday night so they would get it Tuesday. The paper was printed
abovt Wednesday or Thursday. You would get it back on Friday or Saturday.
Q: Was this for all three of the newspapers, you sent the . . .
A: Yes. I think I had two at one time and then, at one time, I had all three
of them.
Q: What were the names of the papers, sir? Do you remember?
A: The Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier and the Kansas City Call.
Q: How did you sell these? Did you deliver or did you have a stand?
A: No, I would deliver and I would go downtown on Saturday. A lot of people
came in from the country on Saturday, you know, from all the rural areas. I
would just circulate through the crowd and sell them. But I had some regular
customers, you know. Paid six cents for them, sold them for a dime.
Q: And did you get paid for the column that you were writing?
A: No, the incentive for writing the column was to get more people to buy the
paper.
Q: About how many did you sell each . . .
A: Oh, I used to sell maybe fifty to a hundred a week or maybe sometimes a
hundred and fifty. They sold pretty good.
Q: And you were about nine or ten years old at this time?
A: Yes.
Q: How long did you conduct this business?
A: Urn, until--1 guess a couple of years.
Q: Why did you stop?
A: I don't know. I don't know. I got a little past that and started working

in drugstores and, you know, different things--regular jobs and stuff.
(taping stopped for intercom conversation, then resumed)
Q: You moved on to a job in a drugstore, you say?
A: Yes, I became a porter in the drugstore and delivery boy in it. I had a
couple of those jobs and I worked those and I still carried my daily paper
route. I had two jobs at: that time, because I was delivering my daily paper
route and working at the drugstore as a delivery boy.
Q: How large a route did you have?
A: About two hundred papers.
Q; Was it morning or evening delivery?
A: I had both. At one period, I had the morning paper, which was the
Commercial Appeal, which came out of Memphis, Tennessee. I would get up at
Eive o'clock in the morning and pick those up. I always get a kick out of
watching the kids deliver morning papers now. Sometimes my paper comes at
eight, nine o'clock in the morning. When I was a kid, we picked them up at
Eive and I would have my papers delivered before six-thirty. Because when you
said you had a morning paper for somebody, you had a morning paper, it wasn't
a mid-day paper.
Q: What was the other paper?
A: Well, I used to also handle the Memphis Press Scimitar, that was a Hearst
paper that came out in the afternoon. 1 had a paper route for them once. I
once had the paper route for Hearst for the Memphis Press Scimitar and the
Blytheville Courier, which was an afternoon paper at home, at the same time.
So, I used to have two, carried two of them.
Q: What were the newspaper reading habits in your family? Did your father
read extensively in the newspapers?
A: Extensively. Cover to cover. And resented any messing up of the paper.
In other words, if you read a paper ahead of him, he wanted it in order and
he wanted it neat when you got through with it. That's something I can always
remember. You know, there have been a lot of arguments in families about I.
that. Some people, when they get through reading the paper, it looks like
it's been through a paper mill or something, you know.
Both my mother and father were omnivorous readers. They read everything.
Papers, magazines. There was always family discussion about current events and
what was going on in the world, always.
Q: In those discussions, you were a little young at the time, but do you recall
anything said about prohibition?
A: (pause) No, I don't remember any discussion about prohibition. I remember
I

when prohibition was over and they had the three-point-two beer and something
like that. Not many discussions about liquor, I don't remember much. We
never had a lot of liquor in my house. My daddy would make grape wine and
blackberry wine. They would have it for ceremonial things, like Christmas
when people would have cake and wine or something. But very little drinking
was in the home.
Q: So, you don't recall your father's position on prohibition, then?
A: No, I do not.
Q: Living in an agricultural community, did you work much on the farms, out
surrounding . . .
A: &, yes, there were some summers I spent with farm families when my mother
would go away to college for the summer. I would spend the summer with a farm
family and worked on the farm with them, sure.
Q: Was this the same family more than one summer?
A: Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Sebastian, who were a nice family. I stayed with themi
couple of summers.
Q: Were they black or white?
A: They were black, but they owned their own farm.
Q: How large a farm was it?
A: About a hundred and sixty acres.
Q: How old were you at this time?
A: You know, I guess maybe . . . eleven, twelve, thirteen, something like that.
Q: Did you learn to drive the horses in the field? Or that type work?
A: No. No, I wasn't big enough to fool with the horses, they used mules,
anyway. I wasn't large enough to handle a horse or mule.
Q: What type of work did you do on the farm, then?
A: The chores. You know, feed the chickens, slop the hogs, bring in firewood.
Various kinds of chores like that which were just peripheral to actual farm
life, was just a part of it. I chopped cotton and that kind of thing. Carried
water to the field hands and that kind of thing.
Q: Did you help with the milking?
A: Never helped with the milking, no.
I

Q: You didn't do any real field work, then, while you . . .
A: Not basically, no.
Q: You indicated that you had done some clearing of land, or worked at that
at some time.
A: Yes, I guess that was probably my senior year in high school. Just before
graduation, we took a few days out and worked in this new ground to get some
money to get clothes and other items for graduation.
Q: And what type of work did you do there? The chopping of trees or . . .
A: Chopping of trees, burning stumps, getting--you see, sometimes they would
haul away part of the debris and that kind of thing and you would load the
trucks and stuff like that.
Q: What kind of farm was Mr. Sebastian's, predominently? Did they grow
cotton?
A: Cotton, they used to grow cotton and corn. See, in that county was a very
rich land. Actually, probably had the highest production rate of cotton in
the world. They grew two bales an acre without fertilizer.
Q: Oh?
A: Yes. The land was very, very productive for cotton and, as a matter of
fact, that's where they had the first cotton-picking contest in the world.
They used to have it every year. The first prize was $1000, I recall, and
that was a long time ago. They really raised cotton there, they raised more
cotton in that county than in any county in the world.
Q: Did you do any cotton picking while . . .
I
I
A: Yes, I did some cotton picking as a kid. Never was very good at it, never
did really get a handle on being a good one. I just never did. I never
i
picked 200 pounds in a day in my life. One day I had a very good start, I had
140 pounds by one o'clock and I knew I was going to get 200 that day and it
rained. (laughs) Never did really become an efficient cotton picker at all.
Q: How about shucking corn? Did you . . .
I
A: Never did much of that, no. 1
Q: When you were clearing the new land, did they work as a large crew?
A: Large crew. I think it paid a dollar, dollar and a half a day or something
like that.
i
Q: Was this a mixed black and white crew?

A: Mixed crews, yes.
Q: Do you remember any of the foremen on those jobs?
A: No, I do not. I really don't.
Q: Since it was an agricultural conrmunity, there must have been an interest in
the county fair type of thing. Was there a county fair each year?
A: Oh, yes, we had county fairs there and they had . . . sewing, preservation
of vegetables, mostly canned vegetables. And they got very fancy, like
shingle-pack peaches, and all kinds of jellies and jams and best ham, best
shoulders, and the best live animals, you know, hogs. They had, Duroc Jerseys
and Poland China hogs, basically. Those were the big brands in that area.
Chicken production, turkeys and--a regular county fair. But there was a lot
of competition from the people in the area as to who had the best green beans
and who had the best tomatoes and peppers and all that kind of stuff like
that.
Q: Did you make any entries at any time?
A: No, never did make any entries. My mother used to put, you know, fruit and
jams and jellies and stuff like that.
Q: Did Mr. Sebastian have any entries in the fair?
A: I don't know whether I ever remember--remember Mr.--I just don't remember
that--I'm sure Mrs. Sebastian did; particularly, probably; in the sewing
because she was a seamstress, too. (pauses) And they would have things like,
you know, quilts and all that kind of thing. People did a lot of things for
themselves in those days. The government wasn't giving everybody everything,
you know, nor did people expect it, which is the other side of the question.
Q: Did you have a particular family doctor there?
A: Yes, we had Dr. Green and Dr. Roberts. Dr. B. E. Roberts.
Q: Was he black?
A: He was black. Both were black.
Q: Where did he get his training?
A: Meharry Medical College. As a matter of fact, I was delivered by a black
doctor whose name was Dr. Joe Armillo Banks. As a matter of fact, I have my,
second name from him. My second name is Armillo. Dr. Banks was the doctor 9ho
delivered me. In my hometown, we have always had black doctors and black
I
dentists. As a matter of fact, in my hometown, the first liquor store that
came in after prohibition was owned by two black gentlemen, the first in the
town.

Q: Were there any other doctors or was Dr. Roberts the only one?
A: No, there was Dr. Green there, Dr. Gabashine. Dr. Keith and Young were
the dentists, The dentist there now is a Dr. Nunn, who was my high school
basketball coach, who went back to school after I got out of high school to
become a dentist. We were a fairly progressive town.
Q: Are you still in touch with any of those people?
A: Oh, sure. I'm in touch with my coach, now a dentist, Dr. Nunn. Still
in touch with him. His wife now has a Ph.D. and teaches at a college in
Memphis. His three sons all have their degrees. One is a lawyer and one is
teaching and--I don't know what the other is doing, but they're all doing
something valuable and worthwhile.
You see, in that class that I finished high school--there were thirteen of us
in that class and ten out of that thirteen now have college degrees and three
have degrees past the college level. That's a pretty good record for a little
town like that, where everybody was poor, but we got a lot of incentive and a
lot of desire from our high school and from our teachers. Everybody just
tried to do something, we just went out and everybody worked and made some
accomplishaents.
Q: What type of incentive? Was there a particular teacher that was . . .
A: Well, I think--the town was fairly close-knit. You know, you didn't just
see your teachers during the school time. They all belonged to the churches
and you saw them every Sunday at church, also. So, there was sort of a continuation
of the educational process between school and church and home and
that was a very close relationship--between the school and the churches and
the homes and the parents and the PTA [Parent-Teachers Association] and the
schools. It all kind of worked together. Although we knew that we were
deprived and segregated and subject to divisional kinds of governmental spending,
we knew that, if you wanted to do something, you had to be good at it
and you had to work harder, probably, to get the chance to do it. Among those
kinds of programs, I think most of us got inspired to just to go on to try
to do something better for ourselves.
-
Q: Were other teachers doing as your mother was in summer, going on during
the summer?
A: Many of them, yes. Many of them were going on to schools during the
summer, that is correct. Because they all, you see, in that day started right
out of high school, or very shortly thereafter, or after a normal school or
something, and as conditions improved and requirements got greater they would
go to school six weeks in the sumner, or twelve weeks in the summer if they
could afford it, until they finally got their degrees.
1 can remember a woman who wanted to borrow some money from me to go to summer
school, a teacher. I was about twelve, fourteen, and I was afraid to lend it

to her for fear she wouldn't pay me back. So I went down to the bank and
talked to the president. Told him that I wanted to put the money in the bank
and let her borrow it, ostensibly, from the bank and not from me, because
I knew she would pay the bank back. He thought that was kind of interesting
that I would have that kind of foresight.
He was a pretty tough old man. He ran the whole town, you know, the sheriff
tipped his hat to this old man, you know, this "Mr. Big." So, my father said
to me when I was going down there, he said, "You kind of scared of Mr. ~ynch?"
I said, "No, I'm not scared, daddy." He says, "Well," he said, "he's just a
man like anybody else," he says, "and when you go in there, don't see him
sitting behind that big desk. In your mind's eye, you see him sitting on a
toilet stool with his pants down and look him in his eye and talk to him,''
And that's what I did. (laughter) Because I don't care how big a guy was,
could be the president of the United States, sometimes if you ever feel like
you're awed of somebody, just look them dead in the eye, but in your mind's
eye, see them sitting on a toilet stool with their pants down and then you're
comfortable to them.
My father had a Lot of very interesting philosophy. As I, said, he really was
not a college man, but he was a bright man. Had a lot of very interesting
philosophy and knew how to program his mind to get things done or to inspire
you to do them, you know. That's a hell of a thing for him to--I don't think
I could ever come up with anything that bright to tell my kids, you know,
to . . . But sometimes education can be helpful and then sometimes it can be
burdensome. Because I think sometimes when you have a lot of education yau
are concerned about how did Spinoza do it or how did this philosopher do it
or what did this man think. And sometimes you're so concerned about trying
to remember what somebody has done or said that you don't spend enough time
trying to figure out how to best say it er do it yourself.
Q: Yes. And therefore it doesn't relate to the specific situation you're in.
A: Yea. I really believe that I'm very fortunate to have had two parents,
one with formal education and one without formal education, because I had two
parents who both were very educated in the context of how to get along in the
world and how to get along with people and how to maximize your own talents.
I'm very, very fortunate to have had that because, sometimes, I see a lot of
people get so bookish that they deprive themselves of that natural thought
process. You've seen that happen, haven't you?
Q: Yes, sir. (pause) What was the banker's name?
A: (~ause) Lynch. Trying to remember his first name. Think it was
AnOrhel
Bert
Lynch. (chuckles) Sounds like Bert down to Georgia, doesn't it?
Bert Lynch.
Q:
1
Yes. (laughter) Yes. Did the Depression have any particular effect n
Blytheville or on your family?
A: Oh, of course it did. It didn't have a great deal on my mother becausq my

mother was in a school system and that, you know, sort of stayed pretty much
as it was. W e didn't have anything like script or anything like that; they
wer *e paid their regular salaries. As to my dad, it did have an effect because,
you know, the price of cotton went down. I remember they had a song, "~ive
cents cotton and ten cents meat. How's a poor man gonna eat?" (chuckles)
Cotton was not as big as it had been.
I think for one period my dad worked for a governmental project.
Be worked
with the, what they called . . . CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] camps they
had. And he was sort of a supervisor down at one of those CCC camps for, oh,
about a year, I guess.
Q: Where was this located?
A: Dyer, Arkansas.
Q: Do you know what kind of project it was?
A: It was a project where they were cleaning new ground, Yes. Preparing the
woods for agricultural pursuits.
Q: Did he act as foreman d m
there, then?
A: He was a foreman down there, yes.
Q: About what year was that, do you recall?
A: I can't remember. I was just trying to think of that, an instant before
you asked. I only remember being down there once; he was home on the weekend
and we took him back down there, so it had to be--well, it was after 1930,
because we wouldn't have had a car before 1930. It was probably 1932, 1933,
1934, somewhere along in there. I know Roosevelt was president then,
because he brought on the program and Roosevelt wasn't elected until 1932.
So it had to be after 1932, probably 1933 or 1934.
Q: So, other than that, you didn't see any drastic effect in the family.
A: Well, no. No, not any drastic effect in the family at all. There was a
general economic down spiral, but most of the people in my community had not
been affluent anyhow, you know, not really affluent, so--it really didn't
affect poor people as much as it did people who had made big money, you know.
Q: Did your mother have much difficulty in locating a school for summer . . .
A: No, none whatsoever. No, she always had a very high, good reputation as a
teacher and there were always plenty of schools, she had her choices.
Q: You said your first encounter with a lawyer was at Little Rock a t a very
young age. Did you know any lawyers there in Blytheville?
A: Yes, there was a fellow by the name of Barham, George W. Barham, who was a

lawyer who became a judge there. He was very enraptured with the music at
our high school, so much so that he took a group of our students to his
hometown, which happened to be Bloomington, Illinois, one year to sing in
some programs they had up there. That was a long, long way from Blytheville
in those days. You know, over three hundred miles, and that was a twp-day
trip almost, you know.
Q: Went by train, I suppose.
A: No, they drove up there.
Q: Oh, they did?
A: Yes.
Q: You weren't in this group.
A: No, I was a little too young, but I remember when they went.
Q: Did you get to know anything about a lawyer's trade, as it were?
A: No, not really.
Q: So, you didn't know any of them that well?
A: No. Well, I knew them but then 1 just wasn't involved, you know, wasn't
something I was involved in.
Q: On trips--now, you had traveled to Toledo and to Chicago here and so on--
what was it like traveling by train as a black in the 1920's and 19301a?
A: Well, I was quite young but I do remember we were segregated into a, you
know, black section and when we went from St. Louis to Toledo, I remember
that we sat in the mixed part of the train. There was no segregation between
St. Louis and Toledo. My mother says when I got on the car, I was four years
old, that I said, "Mama, are we in the right place? This is the white folks
train," or something like that. And my uncle, who had got on the train with
US, says, "No, that isn't. Anybody can sit anywhere they want to now, when
you're going this way."
When we were going out to Toledo, there were a couple of teachers on this
train, white teachers, two women. They got to talking to me and teaching me
nursery rhymes and stuff and my mother said I picked them up so fast, these
ladies asked her to let them adopt me and take me with them and my mother
said, "No, no way. 'I Couldn't leave me, couldn't let me go. I don't know
whether they meant it, I guess they did, they asked anyway. They just liked my
answers. They were teaching me nursery rhymes and 1 was picking them up fast,
you know, so they just kind of liked that. I guess they were a couple of
unmarried ladies, I don't know.
Q: Did you have any problem eating on the train?

A: Not on that train. They didn't have any diners on a train, anyway, in
those days. Everybody took their own lunch in a shoebox. Everybody took
their own lunch. Couldn't afford, probably, the diners, anyway, you see.
I remember once my dad was on the train and they charged 1 5 for ~ a Coke and
he just about had a fit, called them "robber barons" and everything else.
1 thought about him the other day. I was at a real fancy golf course and
stopped at the pop machine to buy a Coke, and it was 75C. I thought about
my dad and the time they charged him 15C for a Coke on a train and he just
went into orbit, you know, because he just thought it was just disgraceful
that anybody would rob you like that. How things change.
Every once in awhile something happens in my life that causes me to think
about my dad and what his reaction would have been, you know, in the days
when he lived, because he died in 1937 and there have been a hell of a lot
of changes in this country since 1937. We didn't have television, we didn't
have airplanes like we have today, a lot of things like that. It would be
just almost mind-blowing, to anybody coming back from that period now, to see
some of the "modernities. "
See, we have lived through the most advanced age of mankind. There have been
more technological advances in the last fifty years than in any other period
of world development. You see, I can remember riding in a buggy with my
grandfather, riding in a wagon with Mr. Sebastian and other farmers, and now
you travel by jet airplane. I can remember the first time I ever heard a
radio in a car, I must have been ten years old or something. I was walking
down the street and this man comes by and you hear this music coming out of
the car and you can't believe it. So the kids ran alongside and he would turn
up the music and then slow down, then speed up when we got right by the car.
It was just unbelievable that there would be a radio in a car, just
unbelievable. Now you can sit in your living room and by Telestar you see
Europe, a football game played in Hawaii, the whole thing. So we have really
had from transportation, from communication--particularly in transportation
and communication, the difference has been so much, just so great.
I can remember, you know, T-model Fords and people getting their arms broken
from trying to crank the damn things. Now you get in the cars with air
conditioning and put the thing on, you know, safety sentinel, you put on the
speed and take your foot off the accelerator, yes. So there have been a lot
of advances and changes we've lived through that age. How old a man are you?
I don't know.
Q: I'm fifty-five now.
A: Well, you can remember all the things I'm talking about, then.
Q: Well, pretty much. Yes, sir. I was born in 1924, so . . .
A: I'm 1921.
Q: Yes, sir. When did you have your first radio in the home?

A: (pause) I don't know. I think probably . . . almost as long as I can
remember, we had a radio at our house and almost as long as I can remember,
we had a telephone. We were one of the few families in our area that had
one, I can always remember a telephone put in for a long, long time.
Q: Sir, was there any activist sort of thing going on, say in the 19301s,
in the Blytheville area? Against discrimination, for example, were there
any individuals that were involved in that sort of thing?
A: Well, there were always some individuals who would be involved. Who, you
know, just wouldn't take a lot of the stuff that they put on. A person like
that, they would simply call him crazy and let it go at that, rather than
get everybody else stirred up. But nothing, really, to compare with the kind
of activism that exists today, no. You see, you've got to remember that
people still remembered some of the violence of the period after the Civil
War. There was, you know, this threat of lynchings and Ku Klux Klan; all that
was still in the back of the older people's minds and they remembered all of
the concerted meanness. Comparatively, there wasn't a lot of racial animosity
in my town. As a matter of fact, there were instances where, you know, there
would be an interracial love affair or something and they would probably just
spirit the guy out of town or something. They never had any lynchings and a
lot of stuff like that. We just didn't have it.
Q: Was the Ku Klux Klan very active in that area?
A: Not at all.
Q: (pause) How did you come to choose Tennessee State as a school, sir?
A: Well, after I finished high school, I was given a scholarship to Morehouse
College in Atlanta and was prepared to go there. Incidentally, that's the
school that Martin Luther King attended. They opened about the first of
September and a fellow came through there in August, that we knew, who went to
Tennessee State and he was telling me about Tennessee State and Tennessee
State had a course in business administration and that's what I wanted to
take. It opened on the 28th of September, about three weeks later than the
school in Atlanta, and I had this little job that summer, so I figured I
could work another three weeks before I went to school. And Tennessee was my
mother's home state and she, of course, was high on it. So, I made the choice
and I changed from Morehouse to Tennessee State almost on that three week
basis.
Q: Did the scholarship change, too? Or did you give that up?
A: No, the scholarship did not change, I gave that up, but I got a job
working at Tennessee State.
Q: What was the scholarship based on?
A: Scholarship.

Q: Because of your standing in high school.
A: Yes.
Q: Had you worked toward this, knowing it as a goal?
A: Not as a goal, no. I just had always been impelled to do as well as I
could and that's why I did it. Scholarships weren't that wide-open like
they are now. There were a lot fewer scholarships in those days than there
are now. But I always figured wherever I went to school I was going to have
to work anyhow, so the scholarship wasn't the main incentive. Just doing
well was the incentive.
Q: Who sponsored that scholarship?
A: Well, Morehouse at that time had very close affiliations with the Baptist
church and we were Baptists and I suppose I got a recommendation from my
minister and then they looked at your record against the records of others
who sought to come there .and then decided from among them who should get
the few scholarships they had.
Q: What year was this when you entered Tennessee State?
A: 1938.
Q: What type of job did you find there?
A: I didn't find any, they gave me one. You know, you just came in and you
said you wanted to go to school and you wanted to work part of it and--they
gave me a job. They gave me a job in the laundry. I worked in the laundry
about two or three months when the head of the business department told the
president that I was too smart to work in the laundry and they wanted to
change my job and they brought me up to the comptroller's office. So I worked
in the business office from that point forward.
Q: How soon was this after you had started working there?
A: About three months. That sounds braggadocio but I'm just telling you what
the lady said. (chuckles) Not bragging, telling you what the lady said.
Q: What did you do in the comptroller's office?
A: Oh, worked business machines, regular office work, filing, just regular
office work, clerical work.
Q: You started school then, I guess, in September of 1938?
A: Of 1938, that's correct.
Q: What were the living conditions like there?

CHARLES CECIL AND BESSIE DUPREE PARTEE, 1918.
"I had two parents who were very
educated in tk context of how to
get along in the w odd. "
PHPTOCRAPHS. EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE
CREDITED. COURTESY OF CECIL A. PARTEE.

COURTESY OF BESSIE D. IVY
THE FIVE ROOM HOUSE IN BLYTHEVILLE, ARKANSAS, IN WHICH CECIL PARTEE WAS
BORN.
"Had a lot offlowers and a garden
in the back."

COURTESV OF BESSIE D. IVY
CECIL PARTEE, WITH BRIEFCASE. ARRIVING FOR HIS FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL. BLYTHE-
VILLE, ARKANSAS, SEPTEMBER 1927.
"We had a book called a primer
and it was the story of a young
boy called Baby Ray. "

CECIL PARTEE (L) DISCUSSING A COMMENCEMENT PROGRAM WITH DR.
ANDREW P. TORRENCE, PRESIDENT OF TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY,
ca. 1972. PARTEE, WHO GRADUATED FROM THE UNIVERSITY IN 1942,
WAS THE PRINCIPLE SPEAKER AT THIS COMMENCEMENT EXERCISE.
"Tennessee State had a course in business
administration and that's what I wanted to
take."

CORNEAL DAVIS (L) AND CEClL PARTEE. WHEN PARTEE ARRIVED
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN 1957, DAVIS HAD GAINED
THE EXPERIENCE OF 14 YEARS, HAVING STARTED HIS LEGISLA-
TIVE CAREER IN 1943.
"We got a lot ofguidance, in particular
from Corneal Davis."

CECIL PARTEE (L) CONFERRING WITH CHICAGO MAYOR
RICHARD DALEY.
"He would discuss things with me and
was pretty much on my own to
make the decisions."

A: Beautiful. I stayed in the dormitory and they had nice dormitories and
excellent food. They had a cafeteria style service and the food was
exdellent. Very much unlike many of the colleges in that day where they had
the boarding house style where they put the platter on the table and you
would pass it around. We didn't have that at all. We had cafeteria food and
it was excellent food.
Q: It didn't get worse as time went on by?
A: No, sir. It was beautiful.
Q: Was this in the dormitory that you ate?
A: Well, there was a cafeteria; the cafeteria was in its own building,
separate building.
Q: Let's see, Tennessee State, now, was that en entire black school?
A: All-black school, yes.
Q: Is it still today? Presumably not, I guess.
A: It is now a part of the University of Tennessee system. That's been a
big problem. They have made it a part of the system and have just merged it
with a predominantly white school, which was in downtown Nashville, which
came into being since I left. It still has a black president. It's not a
black school anymore because there is a lot of white people there. The
school's still in existence, but as a merged school.
Q: What courses did you take that first year?
A: Well, I took typing, I took business mathematics, English, world history,
geography. Also art and music appreciation.
Q: Were there any organizations on campus that you joined that first year?
A: Yes. Yes, there were four fraternities and four sororities on that campus
and I joined the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity,
Q: Did they have a fraternity house?
A: No fraternity houses, no.
Q: Whdre did you meet, then?
A: We would just meet in a designated room in the dormitory.
Q: Was there a rush period for that?
A: Yes, they had a rush period, where they had what they called a "smoker
They would have a smoker in which you would be introduced to the varlous

36
fraternities and then you made a choice. I pledged in January of my freshman
year and I was actually inducted in November of my sophomore year.
Q: So this was a whole year process of making the decision.
A: About six months, really, Between January and November, with being out
for the summer, of course.
Q: Did you have a rigorous initiation into the . . .
A: Yes, it was quite rigorous, both mentally and physically, There was a lot
of physical attachment to joining a fraternity in those days, with paddles
and all that kind of thing, and then there were some guys who would put you
to some mental tests. My final week, some fellow asked me to learn a poem to
say that night. It was a poem, "~ungha Din," which was a little over a
hundred lines. He asked me to commit it to memory for a presentation during
that week and I did. I don't remember it now, because I learned it under
force, but I had to commit "~ungha Din" to memory for this guy. So, they put
you through a lot of both physical and mental stress and strain.
Q: Did you feel that it was helpful, the fraternity?
A: Well, I suppose at that day and time it had a great deal of meaning, to be
a fraternity man was a social kind of attribute and a lot of things are
geared along social lines, in addition to the school side of it. It was
helpful, I suppose. It gave you a close liaisan with a group of men throughout
the country. I still have a very good liaison with--as a matter of fact,
we had our annual convention here this year and I was the master of ceremonies
of a roast, we roasted one of our brothers, a fellow who is now the mayor of
Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, who is a Kappa also. Any town I go into, I can,
just through my Kappa contacts, be put in immediate contact with some of the
top people in that city. So I guess, from that vantage point, it has some
meaning.
Q: Was it helpful scholastically in the . . .
A: Well, I suppose I could have got along without it. There were nice guys
in there who you could study with and that kind of thing, some guys who
could give you some information about past examinations or things of that
sort, or particular teachers' foibles or attitudes or mentality, but that was
not on the major side. That was kind of a minor side of it, but it could
happen.
Q: You say there were three other fraternities on the . . .
A: Yes, three other fraternities and three other sororities. (pause) I
guess I chose the one I did because I sort of liked the guys in that one
better than I did the others. I guess that's what it was about.
Q: Did you know any of the . . .

A: I didn't know any of them until I got to school. I didn't know any of
those people until I got there.
Q: Was there anyone back home that knew of that fraternity?
A: Yes, but I didn't really realize that, because I hadn't really had any
discussion with anybody back home about fraternities. There was a man for
whom I had worked one summer, a dentist at home that I had worked for. In
those days, dentists made their own teeth and he taught me how to bake the
teeth, the enamel on, and all that sort of stuff. So, I worked for him one
summer and when I came back, I had my indication of my pledging on my lapel.
He noted that I had a scroll which was a pledge pin for Kappa and he said,
"oh, you're gonna be a Jhppa." I said, "~es." He says, "I'm a Kappa."
And I didn't realize it until then, because I had really had no basic conversation
with anybody about the fraternities until I got there. I'm sort of
glad I did, because I made the choice on my own without any kind of prior
influences. Yes.
Q: (pause) Going back a little bit, was there any individual in high school
that gave you a reason for wanting to go to Tennessee State? Other than
perhaps your mother's interest?
A: No, nobody had really mentioned that school at all. I don't know, I just
always assumed I would go to college and--because I always wanted to be a
doctor, that was my plan.
Q: Oh? A physician?
A: A physician, yes. I found out one day that I had no chemistry for blood
and illness and I hated to be around people when they were sick because I
didn't feel I could do enough for them. So I abandoned the notion of begng a
doc tor.
I really went into business because I had wanted to be an actuary, because I
did very well in. math and all. I read an article once about a fellow who was
an actuary and there were only three or four black actuaries in the United
States and I said, "My God, if you'd get to be one of those, you could always
get a good job and you wouldn't have to worry and all that." So, I started
out and wanted to be an actuary. By the time I got to be a sophomore in
college and got involved in accounting, I just decided that wasn't for me
because it's a profession--I thought, you know--for people who are kind of
loners, who like to work by themselves and I found I was sort of gregarious
and I needed something that involved people.
After I started debating and started doing very well in the debating, it was
suggested to me by one of my history professors that maybe I ought to consider
going to law school. My roommate was a fellow who came to school saying he
wanted to be a lawyer and so we got to talking about it again and I then
decided probably that would be the way I would go. I would go to law school.

SESSION 2, TAPE 2, SIDE 2
Q: Did you join any clubs in the freshmen year?
A: Yes. Most of the major disciplines had their own interest clubs, like
there was a--oh, my freshmen year 1 took physical science too, that was
another course I took. Because the physical science area had a club which
I joined. And I took history and so I joined the History Study Club.
Practically all of the major disciplines on that campus had stylized interest
clubs for that particular discipline. History and there was an English club
and, you know, various clubs like that. So I joined most of the clubs that
related to my school wo-k, yes.
Q: Did they meet periodically, weekly, or . . .
A: No, they normally didn't meet that often. What they would do is have one
big project every year. Some sort of eye-catching project which would let
the president of the tfniversity know that they were really doing something
besides just teaching. It had some cosmetic effect, I'm sure, for them and
it also heightened, I think, the interest of kids in that particular discipline
because they would sometimes meet with groups on other campuses in that town,
people in the same kinds of fields. See, Nashville was just a plethora of
colleges, they used to call Nashville the "Athens of the South." There were
many other schools that we interfaced with on those kind of subjects.
Q: Let's take History Club. Do you remember the first project you were
involved in with it?
A: No, I really don' t.
Q: Do you remember any of the projects that were underway?
A: Couldn't tell you a single project.
Q: (laughs) When did you start debating, sir?
A: My sophomore year.
Q: How did you get involved with that?
A: Well, the school furnished a tuxedo if you could make the debating team
and I wasn't able to buy one, so I figured if I could make this team, I
could get one, so I did. Came to enjoy it and did very well. As I mentioned
to you earlier, I had done some debating in high school. This was the first
time I had had a debating team where you had an instructor in the art of
debate.
He found me, I guess, a pretty apt student and interesting and so I
made it. We did some debates there on our own campus and then we debated
some other schools.
Q: Did you just sign up for debate or did you . . .

A: Well, just like going out for the football team, going out for the debating
team, or going out for the choral group, you know. They gave everybody a
chance at it and then they would pick out the ones they want for the team.
Q: What was your first debate, do you remember?
II
A: I really don't. I really don't. I don't remember the subjects on any of
those. It's interesting, I can remember the ones from high school, but I
can't from college. As I said to you, the ones from high school were subjects
which really didn't have any final answer but they were calculated to inspire
you and inculcate in you the research process. So you would go out and
research things and learn to use a library and get information and all. And
it was more calculated to do that than it was to give you any final answers to
the debate--llke which is more destruative, fire or water, you know, and things
like that. But in college, I don't remember. I don't remember any of the
subjects. I don't remember.
II
Q: Did you find much better resource at college for . . .
A: Well, not only better resources but we had individual instruction as to how
best to carry your point. How to, you know, move with the negatives first;
if you had something in your argument that you knew was negative, you should
start with it and build it. At least, give it some sort of a veneer that makes
it less vulnerable when the other person attacks it. If somebody is going to
say something about your weak point, it's better you mention your weak point
first so it becomes stronger as you mention it than it would be if you didn't
mention it, sort of ignored it and someone comes in and--then
when they knock it down.
it's devastating
It's the same way I do the--you know, it's a carry-over into law. ks I was
practicing law, if I had a person that I represented who had been/to penitentiary
before, I didn't let the state say he had been at penitentiary. In
picking the jury, I would say, "Now, this man has been to the penitentiary.
Are you going to hold that against him in this case? Would you not believe
him, because he's been convicted before?" So that you would take the weakness
of your own position, surface it yourself and give it as much strength as is
humanly possible, rather than to sit there and let him look like a choir boy
and then have the other side say, "Well, you know, this guy's been to the
penitentiary before," and then the people say, "Ah, ha!" So, that kind of
thing.
Q: What other schools did you debate with?
A: Yes, I guess we debated at a school called Lane College. That was down in
Jackson, Tennessee. We had a debate with Fisk University which was in Nashville.
I think we debated Kentucky State and--geez, that's so, that's so
fuzzy.

Q: 1've never been involved with a debate team sort of thing. When you went
to one of these other colleges or universities to debate, was it on a
single subject? Of did you go for two or three days and . . .
A: No, it would be on a single subject. On a single subject and you would
have an allotment of time to both sides. You divide up your time, as you
decided, between, say, two or three contestants on either side and then there
would be time for rebuttal and surrebutter. That would be it. Then somebody
would make a decision.
Q: Were these debate sessions well-attended by the student bodies?
A: Well, fairly well attended. Sort of relative, wouldn't be as many
people as you would think might be interested. Sometimes it would be more
than you would think would be interested, you know.
Q: So you were on the debate team then for the balance of your career there
a t . . .
A: Actually, I guess it was only a couple of years because, I don't know, it
just sort of faded. They didn't have it after that, I don't think. If
they did, I wasn't aware of it. Couple of years I took it.
Q: Yes. And you don't recall any specifics on any of these other clubs like
the Physical Science Club or the English Club.
A: No, I don't.
Q: How about sports, sir? When did you get involved with sports there?
A: Well, always, as a kid, I played baseball and tennis, and basketball in
high school. When I went to college, I had not the size, physical size, to
make the teams, nor the prowess. The only sports I played in college were
intramural sports. We played intramural football teams and intramural
basketball teams. Physical ed., of course, was a requirement so you played
in those areas. But no, none of the college sports, on any af the teams, you
know. I didn't play that much tennis in college either because I was
working and really didn't have that much time.
Q: Which courses did you like best at the university? Or at the college?
A: Well, I think probably, American government, English--were probably my
favorites. And the math courses, statistics and tests and measurements and
college algebra. I liked the math courses. Math, English and political
science courses, I think, were my favorites.
Q: Which helped you most in later life?
A: I don't think there's a most, I just think they all sort of blend.

4 1
SESSION 3, TAPE 3, SIDE 1
Q: I was in the train station on the way up hers last Friday and ran into
Mr. and Mrs. Rountree.
H
b
A: Oh, yes.
Q: Alvin Rountree from Springfield.
A: Yes. Alvin Rountree. And his wife's name is Georgia.
Q: I don't know her that well. I worked with Mr. Rountree , . .
A: She was one of the first black teachers in Springfield.
Q: Oh, is that right?
A: Yes.
Q: They said that they had been schoolmates of yours at Tennessee State.
A: Tennessee State, that's right.
Q: She's from Nashville, I believe.
A: She's from Nashville; he's from East St. Louis.
Q: Oh, he is? I didn't know that. Yes, they were on their way to Kansas City,
I don't know what for, for the weekend. He said he's going to be retiring, I
guess, in about a year. Said he was thinking about going into part-time
teaching, so he would have freedom, and also that he might be involved with
the Urban League in some way or other.
I!
A: Yes, I think he works over in the secretary of state's office, in archives
or somewhere over there.
Q: Yes, in the Illinois state archives. hat's where I met him. He's been a
great help in the last three or four years.
I
A: He's been there a long time.
Q: Yes, sir, way back in the thirties. She said to be sure and ask you about
the newspaper you edited at Tennessee Statec
A: Yes, I guess there was--I was editor of the paper my senior year, yes.
1 9: What kind of paper was it?
A: Just general news circulation. One of the things that was disturbing to me
was that we had a request, as a matter of fact they were picketing, for /a

gossip column. They wanted a gossip column and I didn't think that it was
appropriate. I made the statement that there was enough gossip, and small
talk, you know, there already and we didn't need to formalize it with a column
and the gentleman, who was my dean and who was the person I reported to under
this project, said, "Well, I want to tell you something." He said, "Gossip
is a part of America." He said, "The highest paid journalist in America is
a man named Walter Winchell and that's what his column is. Really, if we get
right down to it, it's gossip. So," he said, "give them a gossip column."
And I relented on that basis.
I decided I would do it thoroughly, so I picked out about eight or ten people,
men and women, mostly women, who were persons who had had some disappointments
on that campus, like girls who had pledged a sorority and did not make it or
girls who were less attractive than others who had been pushed aside for one
reason or the other. I asked them, individually, and privately, to submit to
me gossip and to submit it to me at my post office box, anonymously. And I
got some real, juicy gossip. And I started to print it. And then I got
burned in effigy because they were mad at this column,it was so introspective
and devastating--but they asked for it.
Q: Was this the same people who had picketed in the first place?
A: I'm sure. I'm sure. The ones who insisted on its inclusion.
Q: How large a paper was it?
A: Eight pages and we had a circulation that would cover the campus. We
had about, I guess, about forty-five hundred kids on the campus. It was an
eight page paper.
Q: How did you have it published? Privately or was it . . .
A: No, it was published by the school, by the printing press there at the
school, yes.
Q: What was the name of the paper?
A: Tennessee State Collegian.
Q: So that was your second experience with writing up . . .
A: Yes, it really was, yes. I remember one of the editorials that I wrote
that the Dean was just really enamored of and it was "Are You in College or Is
College in You?"
Q: Oh? What was the tenor of the thing?
A: Well, the thrust of it was: "Were you just in college physically or was the
concept of college imbedded in your personality and in your thought process?"
If you were just in college physically, you really didn't care much about what
went on or how things went, you weren't really concerned about improving

yourself and so forth. Whereas, in contradistinction, if you had college in
you, then the school itself became a method by which you enlarged your own
perceptions, in which you elasticized your own mind and where you prepared
yourself to make a contribution to society. That was the concept of the
differential.
Q: And he really liked that?
A: Oh, he really liked that, yes. He said that was "deep." He said, "NOW
that's deep. I like that .I1 (laughter)
Q: How large a staff did you have for the newspaper?
A: We had about eight or ten people.
Q: Are you still in contact with any of those eight or ten?
A: No, I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I can't even remember who they
were, to tell you the truth. (pause) Got it out once a month, I suppose, 1
don't really remember.
Q: How did you get to be editor of this? Did you actively go after it?
A: Well, I think the paper was commissioned through the student council and I
was president of the student council. The student council had to make a
judgement as to who should be the editor and I suppose I just kind of got it
shoved at me, really. I had taken a couple of journalism courses and I had
done fairly well, so . . .
Q: What were your functions that you performed in the student council?
A: The student council was divided into four components. We had two freshman
representatives, two sophomore representatives, two juniors and two seniors.
I had been a member of the student council since my freshman year. Mostly, we
were a liaison between students and the faculty and the administration; you
know, to articulate the needs, the requests and so forth, of the student body.
From time to time, disciplinary problems that arose would be given to us by
the administration to make recommendations as to what should be done in a
particular instance. As I look back on it, I think that the disciplinary prablems
that they gave us were ones that they found it difficult to deal with and
they felt that if we gave our version, our impact on it, then it sort of
covered their behinds a little bit, you know; so it could be a student decision
rather than an administrative one.
Q: Do you remember any instances of . . .
A: I remember one that I thought that we got shafted on. I suppose that's
why it sticks in my mind. There was an extremely, I mean extremely, attractive
young lady who came from St. Louis who said that one of her parents was baack
and the other was Chinese. She was a beautiful person physically and notitoo
bad mentally. She was absolutely exquisite. She could have been a movielstar.

She had violated some rule that required her to be back on campus at a certain
time in the evening and she had woefully violated the regulation. She was
supposed to be back at ten-thirty, she got back at two-thirty the next morning
or something, you know. They sent that problem to us, as to what the discipline
should be in that instance. We recommended that she be sent home for the
rest of the quarter and return the next quarter and the president overruled
us for some reason or another.
Q: And expelled her, you mean?
A: No, they didn't do anything to her.
Q: Oh, I see, I see. (laughter) Well:
A: Today, with coed dorms, the problem seems like nothing, but then it was a
"biggie." That's the one I do remember because it was such a deviation from
our recommendation, you know. The president just decided, "Well, she'll be
all right," you know.
Q: And I suppose she was all right after that.
A: Oh, I suppose she was, yes.
Q: How did you come to get on the council in your freshman year?
A: I ran for the office and was elected.
Q: It was the freshman class then that elected you.
A: Freshman class that made the decision, that's correct.
Q: What kind of campaign did you run?
A: Oh, I suppose we had some handbills and you would go around to various
freshman groups and make speeches and tell them what you wanted to do.
Q: Why did you want to be on the council?
A: (pauses) I don't really know. hat's a very interesting question you
have asked me. I don't know. I had always been in some sort of leadership
positions in high school. I was president of my senior class in high school
and I guess I had--maybe I had office fever, who knows. I don't know.
Q: Were you encouraged by anyone to do that?
A: No, I wasn't encouraged by anyone. Just decided I wanted to do it . . .
and did it.
Q: Do you remember any 05 the others that served on the council with you
during the four years?

A: Yes, I remember a fellow by the name of Gupton, Wiley Gupton, who was a
senior representative when I was a freshman representative and . . . no,
Wiley Gupton was a junior representative. It was a fellow by the name of
Luther Glanton who was a senior representative when I was a freshman representative.
He went on from there to Drake University to the Law school and
he is now a judge out in Des Moines, Iowa.
There was something about the people that served on the student council that
showed them to be people of some maturity and some capability and some
analytical kinds of approaches to life, with their feet on the ground, and it
was a nice kind of a spot to be in.
Q: Did any of them come to Illinois? Any one that served on the council,
other than you?
A: I don't remember anyone. Yes, I guess--yes, they did. I think Billy Jones
served on that council and Billy Jones is now a judge down in East St. Louis.
He was from East St. Louis. He was one of the others that served on the
council that I can recall.
Q: You mentioned when you changed from your business administrative interest
to law that there was a fellow student that partially influenced you in this.
Who was that?
A: No, my freshman roommate was a fellow whose name is Waldorf Astoria Johnson
who comes from Quincy, Florida. When he came there as a freshman, it was his
desire to become a lawyer. I had not really given much thought to being a
lawyer because I wanted to be an insurance actuary. But, as I took the courses
of the freshman and sophomore year with the overview of business administration,
I realized that accounting, particularly, was something that took sort of an
introverted kind of a personality. Particularly after I got into debating in
the sophomore year, I felt that, you know, I was more outgoing and gregarious
than introspective and that I might like something where you dealt with people.
That's when I started sort of thinking about going to the law school instead.
ti
Q: Did this change the courses that you . . .
A: Did not change my itinerary. I went ahead and graduated in business administration,
but . . . *
Q: Were there any courses that you took because you knew you were headed
toward law that you wouldn't have taken otherwise?
A: Well, I'm not sure. Of course, we took insurance, we took finance, we
took--1 did take logic, which probably was one I might not have taken if I had
not been thinking about the law. I took statistics, of course, which wag part
of the other curriculum anyway, and I took tests and measurements which was
about the same thing as the statistics. So, it was pretty much the same, but
I guess I probably took a couple of political science courses instead of lone.

Q: When did you start thinking about where you night study law?
A: I guess maybe my junior or senior year. There was a professor there who
was a graduate of Drake University, Mr. Eppse, and we had had one or two or
three of our graduates to go to Drake law school in Des Moines. So probably
that was where it focused on and they got me a scholarship to go there. Then
someone in the business department had gotten me a scholarship to go to Cornell
to go into a masters in business. Actually, what they wanted me to do was go
up there and get a masters and come back and work at the university in the
business area. In the meantime, I just frankly decided that I didn't want
to go to Des Moines. Because I came from a small town in Arkansas, I wanted
to go to a big city. I had been up in this area a couple of summers working
in a steel mill out in Joliet and then I had worked in Chicago one summer. I
liked Chicago and I decided I'd try to come to Chicago. After we made the
arrangement through the State of Arkansas for the tuition, then I had my
choices and I came to Chicago instead.
Q: You say you worked summers in a steel mill in Joliet?
A: Yes, I was at what is called a coke plant, Carnegie Illinois coke plant.
I became a member of the Steelworkers of America out there and worked there in
the summer, back in the early forties, at five dollars and eighty cents a
day. Big money.
Q: What kind of work did you do?
A: I was what was called a luterman. When slack coal is cooked and heated,
it's done in ovens, large, large ovens and at the end of every oven, there
is a large door, like this door except larger. (points to door of the office)
It's made of metal and the cracks around there, you take fire clay and seal
it. You take a trowell, you know, like a bricklayer, and seal those cracks.
That was my job, what's called a luterman. Seal it so that while it cooked,
there would be no air coming in or out. Then you would take the door off and
they would push it through with a big metal coke oven pusher, they called it;
push it out into railroad cars. Take it off and then they would quench it
with water, you know, and make the coke.
Coke was used, I suppose, in steel mills in lieu of coal for making steel.
They would put these cokes in there, they got hotter and stayed hot longer.
So this was a coke plant for--you made the coke for use in steel mills
generally.
I worked out there two summers. Had an industrial accident out there. I
almost lost my right leg, which caused me to be given a 4-F status. I missed
school one year because of that. 1 didn't get back to being out of the
hospftal until around November.
Q: What happened?
A: Fellow who ran the door machine, just through inattention, ran the door
machine into my leg and I had an iron rod that went just about six, five or

six inches, into my leg. And just miraculously missed the bone by a sixteenth
of an inch. I was in the hospital most of the summer.
Q: How did you come to get the job in Joliet?
A: Well, one spring a fellow came there from Joliet and said there were jobs
up there. And so, when school was out that year, one of my friends just took
his dad's car and we drove up there. The jobs weren't that plentiful. I
know the first three or four days around there, we couldn't find anything and
then I finally got a job working at a stove foundry shaking out parts. I was
not physically able to do the work, it was just too much. I think I may have
worked there one or two days and I had to give it up. In the meantime, while
I was waiting to get on at the coke plant, I took a job working for a fanner
cutting asparagus. We cut asparagus for a few days. I don't particuLarly
care for it now. I had too much of it. Worked out these about a week and
then I got the job over at the coke plant.
Q: Must have been hard on your back, cutting asparagus.
A: Oh, you better believe it. I always remember what my grandmother used to
say when I was little and I'd be working in a garden with her and 1'd say, "Oh,
my back hurts." She would say, "You don't even have a back, you only have a
gristle." She said, "You don't have a back until you're twenty-one years old.
You got nothing but a gristle back there, so it can't hurt you," you know. But
it is hard on your back, you're leaning over all day long cutting that stuff.
Q: Where did you stay in Joliet?
A: Well, we lived down on Ohio Street with some people. Just a roomer, you
know. It was a room in someone's home. I stayed there for a couple of weeks
or so and then I moved up to what is called Riley Hill which was sort of a
little area in an unincorporated section between Lockport and Joliet. But
it was right across the road from the coke plant, which made it very convenient.
So I had no transportational cost.
Q: And you spent two summers at this same job, then?
A: Two summers there.
Q: So the second time you returned, they knew you already.
A: Oh, they knew me already, I had no problems then. I had
no problems.
Q: And then you say you worked in Chicago another summer?
A: Yes, I worked for a chemical corporation. Just laboring work for a
company called Emulsol Corporation.
Q: And what did you do there?
A: They had eggs that they powdered and we were packing them in drums for :

shipment all over the world.
It was just laboring work.
Q: And you say you just came to Chicago to look for work then because you
wanted to see what Chicago was like?
A: Yes, and I had a cousin here. I stayed with him and held that job that
summer.
Q: What was his name?
A: Calvin Wills. He had been a Pullman porter for a number of years and I
stayed with him. The Pullman porters in those days were in pretty good shape.
They had regular jobs and they made pretty good money. He took me down one
day to get me a job. He made the mistake of telling my correct age, which
was a year younger than they were hiring, and I didn't get the job. The man
said to us, "we need people so badly. If you had just lied about it, we'd
have taken him. But now that I know," he said, "I can't." So I missed
being a Pullman porter and traveling all over the country. But I got this
other job.
Q: What did you do during the year you were recovering from the leg injury?
A: Taught school.
Q: Oh, you did?
A: Yes.
Q: Where was this?
A: A little town called Birdsong, Arkansas. It was a three-teacher school.
I taught the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, every subject. I had them all
in the same room. 1 suppose there must have been thirty-five kids in the
three grades. They had another teacher for third, fourth and fifth. The
primary teacher taught first and second, and I was the principal.
Q : Well !
A: Yes. The school didn't start until late in November and then I got out
there. They were a very interesting little group of kids. In my eighth grade
class graduation, there were eight youngsters. My mother came down and
delivered the commencement address for me. Of my kids, I know where about
three of them are. One of them went on to finish high school and college and
got a masters and is the head of the art department in the high school system
in my hometown.
Q: Oh, is that right?
A: Another has a masters and is teaching in Chicago. The third one is teaching
out in California, out of that eight. Now, I don't know about the other five,
I just don't know where they are.

Q: And you're still in touch with these three, are you?
A: Yes. Well, I mean pretty much in touch with two of them. One of them
I don't see very often.
Q: Did you enjoy the year of teaching?
A: Enjoyed it immensely. It was really a thrill to me to impart knowledge.
I just really get a glow when someone is wrestling with a concept that you are
seeking to impart. You can almost tell when they get it by their eyes. You
can just: see an enlightenment as though there was a halo or circle of light or
a beam around their eyes at the time they become knowledgeable of what the
concept is about. So I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it.
It was in the rural area. I lived with a widdwed lady and her eight year old
grandchild. She was a very fine old lady and a very aggressive old lady.
Sometimes in the morning, I would hear a shotgun go off and I didn't know what
was going on at first but then I found out that maybe she had gone down to the
field to shoot a fresh rabbit or a squirrel for breakfast.
Q: 1'11 be darned: (laughter)
A: At that time, I earned $75 a month as the principal, and my room and board
was $3 a week.
There were two churches in the area, an A.M.E. church and a Baptist church and
I went to both of them so I could make sure that I would have some relationship
with the kids in their church activities also.
Q: Did you teach church school?
A: No, I didn't teach cherch school, just attended. And there was an A.M.E.,
an African Methodist Episcopal, church there and they had what they call a
presiding elder who came in from time to time and I got to know him. He was
a very fine man and a very inspirational kind of man.
When I got ready to leave after the end of the first year, they were very well
delighted with the growth and development of the kids in my school because I
spent some time with them and they wanted me to stay. I told them I was going
back to college and they said, "Oh, no, stay." They wanted to raise my salary
to $100 a month. That was a lot of money but I said, "No, I'm going to go
back to school.'' So I did.
Q: Did you ever entertain the idea of becoming a teacher?
A: No, I really didn't. In my mother's famfly, there were six girls and I
guess all of them taught school and many of the female members of my family,
the cousins and all, most of them were teachers. I didn't want to be a
teacher. Although I enjoyed it, I want you to know that, but I just didn't
ever desire to be a teacher.

Q: This happened between what years in college?
A: That was between my junior and senior year.
Q: I suppose it was during the senior year that the scholarship decision arose?
A: Perfectly right.
Q: How did you decide on Northwestern?
A: Well, I had made an application to both the University of Chicago and
Northwestern and had been accepted at each on the basis of my college grades.
Northwestern opened about three weeks later than the University of Chicago and
I had come to Chicago that summer, I had this job, and I decided thilt, if I
could work an additional three weeks before I went to school, I would have a
little more of a "stash," you know. So I chose Northwestern on that basis.
Q: And you had a scholarship that you could use at both these schools?
A: Well, yes. The scholarship would be paid by the University of Arkansas
and it would cover tuition at both schools.
Q: Would be paid by the University of Arkansas?
A: By the State of Arkansas.
Q: State of Arkansas. They would pay for . . .
A: They would pay the tuition directly to the school. They would send a
check to me and I would just endorse it to the school.
Q: It would seem they would do that for their own schools in Arkansas, but
they chose Illinois? Or allowed you to choose Illinois?
A: No, what they did was--the scholarship came as a result of their obviating
my attendance at the University of Arkansas.
Q: Oh.
A: You see, at the time, the University of Arkansas was an all-white school.
And they experienced no anxiety to have any black students.
9: I see.
A: And, to avoid it, they just said, "I'll tell you what you do. Don't
hassle it, you just go right ahead somewhere else and we'll pay your tuition,
wherever you get in." So that is what happened. Now, if they had admitted me
to the University of Arkansas, I could not have gone because I didn't have
any money.
Q: Yes, 1 see.

A: But they said, "You can go somewhere else and we'll pay your tuition."
So I came to Northwestern and they paid my tuition. At Northwestern, they
asked me if I wanted a job and I said, "Yes," and they gave me a job in the
library. The job in the library paid my tuition. So they gave me that in
cash, you see. They just gave me--1 think the tuition was maybe, oh, three or
four hundred dollars a semester, something like that. SO I just got cash for
that.
I worked on the weekends. I waited table in nightclubs on the weekends. So,
I would go to school five days a week without working. I would work Friday
night and Saturday night, and sometimes Sunday afternoon or evening, waiting
table, but I had five days when I was going to school that I wasn't working.
Q: You could study.
A: So I went to day-school and they had an accelerated course over there. I
went to school forty-eight weeks a year so I finished Northwestern eight days
short of two calendar years. We had three semesters a year, you see. We
had a couple weeks out at Christmas, a week in the spring between the spring
semester and the summer semester and a week out between the summer semester and
the fall semester. So that's four weeks off during the year.
Q: Yes, sir.
A: So that's why I said forty-eight weeks a year so you could finish in two
years.
Q: Yes, sir. That must have been quite a grind. How many hours did you carry
for a semester?
A: Full, full semester.
Q: About eighteen hours or so?
A: Yes, because you know, I finished in six semesters.
Q: Did you have any real problem with that? Did you ever think you weren't
going to make it because of the . . .
A: Well, Monday was always a hard day because if I worked Sunday night,
Monday could be tough. I used to take these little tablets called No-Doz to
keep from going to sleep. But the trouble with that is you would go through
school but by the time you were close to the evening, Monday afternoon, you
were just really dead, you know, sleepy as hell. Because everything that
brings you up, brings you down, you know; you, there's a . . . But I made it.
Almost went back to Texas with the dean. The dean over there was a man who
had formally been dean at Yale and then he came to Northwestern. Named Leon
Green. He was a very outstanding torts professor, had written a book in torts
and had given birth to a theory called the "Rationale of Proximate Cause" in
torts. And he was leaving Northwestern, retiring, when I left, when I

finished. And he called me in one day and said, "~ecil, I want you to go to
Texas with me. I want you to go to Houston, Texas." This was in 1946. He
said, "Houston, Texas, by 1980, will be the third largest city in America.
I'll go down and I'll help you to get set up and get started down there and,"
he said, "bring you along to be my protege." He says, "That city is gonna
I
grow so and you will grow with it." He says, "The time will come when your
1
people will own banks and savings and loans and all the kinds of businesses
that we have, and," he says, "you'll be right in the mainstream of that."
c
Well, I appreciated it and I told him so, but I had just come from the South
and had to go upstairs in the theaters to see a movie and all that and--you
know, you see a drinking fountain and it's not for you and that kind of
t
thing--and I just decided I didn't want to go through that again.
Q: Yes.
A: So I stayed in Chicago. I've thought about it since in terms of what life
might have been like down there but I don't have any regrets.
Q: Where did you llve while you went to the university?
I 1
A: I usually lived with families, a husband and wife. I would rent a room in
someone's home. I never had an apartment of my gwn or anything like that.
Was this in Evanston?
No, no.
The law school is in Chicago, on Chicago Avenue.
Oh, I see.
Yes, the law school and the med school are here in Chicago
is out in Evanston,
The rest of
Where did you live, then? What part of Chicago?
In the south side of Chicago, 5600 south on Michigan Avenue for a period. / /
I wanted to live in the Y.M.C.A., which is right up the street from the
university. But at the Y.M.C.A., at that time, they were not admitting blacks.
(2: Oh, I see.
A: You know, you don't realize--the Young Men's Christian Association--
couldn't even get a cup of coffee in that place.
Q: Did they have a school cafeteria there at the . . .
1
A: Yes, they had a school cafeteria,
Q: So you ate there-
A: Yes, had lunch there every day.

Q: How did you get back and forth?
A: I took public transportation.
Q: You did.
A: Yes. I made arrangements for dinner. There were a couple of young ladies,
one of whom I knew who had gone to my school who had met another young lady
here at the University of Chicago. They were both working on their masters,
and they shared an apartment, a very small efficiency. I made arrangements
with them to help supply the food and I had dinner with them each evening. So
I had a good meal every day, the dinner meal, in an atmosphere with young
people who were in the same kind of boat I was, going to school. So then, I
met their friends and so I got a chance to meet nice people, people who were
progressive and people who were doing things.
Q: Were there other people from the school that came up to the law school
here that you knew?
A: Yes, there was a fellow here from West Virginia who's now a lawyer for the
government and there was a fellow in my class from Washington, D. C., who
had been a real estate man out in Washington. He came here. He started when
he was thirty-nine years old. There were very few blacks in my class, I
think there were maybe three or four. And then, the next year, there was one
or two, you know, so I met those fellows. One of the fellows that I knew
during that era was a fellow named Hooks who went to De Paul law school. He's
from Tennessee and he went to De Paul law school and he's now the national
president of the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People].
Q: oh? Yes. (pause) When did you join the NAACP?
A: Oh, I suppose after I got out of law school, I took a membership.
Q: So you weren't active while you were in the university?
A: No.
Q: 1 noticed also that you belong to the Chicago Urban League. Were you
active at that time?
A; Yes, I always have kept a membership in the Chicago Urban League, yes.
Q: When did you get started with that?
A: Oh, probably after I got out of school sometime or the other.
Q: Yes. You mentioned the one professor, Leon Green. Do you recall any of
the others that were of particular significance?
A: At the law school?

Q: (indicates af f innative)
A: Yes, there's a fellow by the name of Walter Schaefer who taught me
constitutional law and some other courses and he later became a Supreme Court
justice for the State of Illinois. There was a fellow named Fred Inbau who
was one of my professors there, taught me evidence. There was a fellow named
Irving Goldstein who taught trial technique. Professor Havighurst taught
contracts. Professor Nathaniel Nathanson who taught administrative law. And
let's see, I'm trying to remember some of the other professors. I can
remember the fellow who taught conflicts of interest. Oh, Professor Cary
who taught real property--real popular, he was quite a guy.
Q: Have you kept in touch with any of those individuals since?
A: Yes, particularly Justice Schaefer. Yes.
Q: (pause) Other than the dinners with the two girls, did you have any
particular social life that you followed at all?
A: Very little social life that two-year period.
Q: A little bit busy at that time?
A: Very busy.
Q: Yes, sir. What did you do during the four weeks you had off during that
time?
A: Well, I would probably go down to Arkansas to see my folks at least once a
year, either between one semester or the other. Normally at Christmas, I
would stay here and work because there would be plenty of opportunities, you
know, the business was good.
Q: Yes.
A: I would work during Christmas and I would go down to Arkansas to see them
between, say spring and the summer session, something like that. I spent the
time here working.
Q: Same type of work?
A: Yes, waiting table.
Q: Where did you do that? Right downtown here?
A: Well, the first job I got was over at the Palmer House as a banquet waiter.
I worked there one night and they said that they didn't feed you and I said,
"My God, 1 never worked anywhere as a waiter where you didn't get fed." So I
didn't go back there. I started working for these nightclubs just on the
weekend which was a lot better because if I had gone as a banquet waiter at
a hotel it would have been probably every other night. You work the nightclubs

just on the weekend which was a lot better becauae if I had gone as a banquet
waiter at a hotel it would have been probably every night. You work the
nightclubs on the weekend, you could earn enough to survive pretty, pretty
nicely.
Q: Yes. (pause) Do you recall any other associations with people at the
university that have continued through the years?
A: Well, no, only just: the people I met as students. I, you know, see many
of them from time to time in various walks of life, But from the faculty,
I don't see many of them. A lot of my classmates I see from time to time.
Q: Well, you graduated, then, in 19462
A: In 1946, that's correct. October. September something. The end of
September, 1946, yes.
Q: While you were still at the university in school, had you started working
or figuring out what you were going to do with your law degree when you got it?
A: Well, yes. I had heard from some people who asked me to come into practice
with them. I had some options. There was a man who wanted me to come down to
Birmingham, Alabama, to work with him. I had an opportunity to go to
Memphis, Tennessee, to work with a lawyer there. And I had given some thought
to going west. I don't know how that got in my mind, hut I had been asked to
come to Portland, Oregon. I did not go,
In the meantime, during my final days at Northwestern, we went over to the
court building, to one of the courts buildings here, and I met a man who was
trying a case there that we observed and he aaid he would like for me to come
down and talk to him at his office. He might want to have me work for him.
His name was Joseph Clayton. I went down to talk with him and as soon as I
got out of school, I started to work for him. You see, we got out of school
in September, I guess, and we took the bar examination in early November and I
worked for him from early November up through January before being sworn in.
As a matter of fact, you didn't know whether you had passed the bar for almost
a month. I took it in early November and Thanksgiving I went down to visit
my mother and then I went up to Tennessee State to the football game, to the
homecoming game. I can remember the president wanted me to crown the queen and
asked me haw he should introduce me. He said, "Are you an attorney now?" I
said, "No, I can't say I'm an attorney because I haven't: passed the bar yet.
I haven't gotten the results from the examination I've taken." And he said,
'well, what is your degree?" I said, "It's a J.D." [Doctor of ~urisprudence]
He said, "Well, we'll just call you Doctor Partee." I said, "Okay, fine." So
I was introduced as Doctor Fartee and I crowned the queen.
Then the next day, I got a call from my mother. She said, "The results of your
bar examination are here. Shall I open them and read them?" I said, ''No,
honey, just read them. I know you've already opened them." And she chuckled

and immediately said, "We are very pleased to inform you . . ." I said,
"Read no more," because I knew that that was the key sentence.
When they say,
"We are pleased to inform you . . ." you would know you had passed it. So
then I came back to Chicago and I worked for this lawyer until January and I
got my license on January 20, 1947.
Q: What type of work did you do for him during that . . .
A: Well, I briefed cases, answered calls in courts for him: you know, the
continuance in cases and look up files and that kind of thing, General leg
work, more or less, plus some briefing of cases. If there was some paint he
wanted to know about, I would go into the library and write him a brief for it.
A: Then what did you do in January?
A: Then I just started practicing with him as a lawyer in his office.
Handling some of his cases and began to get a few af my own and started
practicing.
Q: What type of cases were these?
A: Well, he had a general practice but he more or less specialized in criminal
law and domestic law. And that's how I got started with him,
Q: What was the first case you handled? Of your own.
A: I can't remember that, frankly. (pause) I don't remember. I wouldn't
remember the first one of mine from the first one of his, hut he had me trying
cases very--right from the beginning I started trying cases. But I had been
with him for three or four months and I had watched him, so I had a feel for
it; and then we had had trial technique in school, so I knew something about
what you were supposed to do.
Q: What court did you work in on most of your cases?
A: We had both criminal and civil. I had some criminal and some civil.
Q: And where was the court physically located?
A: Well, the criminal court is at 26th and California and the civil court was
right down here in this building.
Q: Where was your office then?
A: We were at 3518 State Street.
Q: Oh, that's right downtown here then.
A: No. Thirty-five hundred south, on State Street.
Q: Oh, 3.518, I see, yes. (pause) How long did you continue with Mr. Clayton?

A: Well, I was there for about a year. Then they asked me to be an assistant
state's attorney.
SESSION 3, TAPE 3, SIDE 2
A: I went to the ~tate's attorney's office, but I didn' t give up my office. I
still had the office because I was first assigned to other courtrooms where
sometimes it was a half-a-day, you know, and I would have something to do in
the afternoon at my own place. So I still maintained a relationship with him
in terms of trying cases and writing briefs and that sort of thing. I still
kept my office.
Q: You say "they." Who were "they1' that asked you to become assistant.
A: Oh, a judge came to me. I had joined a political organization. I had gone
in to see Congressman Davson and told him that I wanted to become a precinct
committeeman, and he says, "Why?" And I said, ''Well . . ." He said, "Do you
want a job?" I said, "No, sir, I don't want a job." He says, "You're a
lawyer." I says, "Yes." He said, "You went to my school, Northwestern." I
said, "~es." He said, "Well, you're kind of strange." And he called a lot of
fellows in and he said, "I want you to meet a very strange animal, ~ers's a
fellow who's different. Most lawyers want a job and no precinct, and hare' s
a guy who wants a precinct: and no job." He said, "That's kind of interesting."
He said, Well, why do you want a ~recinct?" I said, "Well, you see, 1'm not
from here, I don't know a lot of the people here, I'm trying to get to know a
lot of people. If I had a precinct, I would know 500 people by their first
name and 500 people would know me by my first name. And that would give me
some start towards getting known in this city." So he said, "Fine."
So I took a precinct, Now, I had had the precinct: for a year before they
called me in and asked me, they said, "Well, now you said you didn't want a
job but here's a very nice opportunity for you as an assistant state's
attorney." There were very few blacks at that time and I said, "Well, I'll
think ahout it." I talked to Mr. Clayton and he said, "That'll be a fine
opportunity for you professionally!' So I became an assistant state's
attorney.
Q; Where was the precinct?
A: The precinct was at: 62nd and St. Lawrence and Champlain. Sixty-second
and St. Lawrence was the basic part of it. Sixty-two hundred south on St.
Lawrence Avenue,
Q : In what ward was that?
A: That was in the new 20th ward.
Q: What kind of person was Mr. Dawson?

A: He was a very fine man, a very knowledgeable, enlightened, bright,
articulate man. I enjoyed knowlng him. I learned a lot from him. He
believed in democracy being spread throughout and he obtained a lot of jobs
for people and tried to move people up into the mainstream of American life.
A fine gentleman, I enjoyed meeting him. He was a nice man.
Q: Who else was involved with that ward at that time?
A: Well, Dawson was the colmnltteeman and Ciongressman and had a fellow by the
name of Harvey who was his alderman; William Harvey was his alderman. I
knew him, too.
Q: What kind of person was he?
A: A very fine man; a very, very fine man. He had been a fireman and Dawson
picked him because he had integrity and he had forthrightness and made a good
alderman.
Q: Were you living in the ward?
A: No, I was not living in the 2nd ward. That's the 2nd ward. My office was
in the 2nd ward, law office, but I was living in the 20th ward.
Q: When you first started your precinct work, how did you go about becoming
acquainted with these 500 people?
A: Well, my committeeman was a fellow named Kenneth Campbell and he was the
committeeman of the 20th ward and he had precinct schools where he taught you
the rudiments of being a precinct cornitteeman. How to meet people and how
to discuss the issues with them and all. And so, you didn't just go out
barehanded, you went out with some pre-knowledge as to how to approach them,
how to sell your candidates and things of that sort, And how to give service
to people so that when you did come to ask them to support you, you came into
people who had a posture of willingness, you see,
Q: Yes. What were some of the more important lessons they taught you when you
went out?
A: Well, one of the important lessons was that--thfs sounds very trite but
one of the things I learned is, if you smoked, you never walk in anyone's
house with a cigarette in your hand or your mouth. Maybe they didn't smoke or
maybe it's inconvenient. Maybe they didn't have an ashtray. It was just a
basic kind of thing. And general courtesy and respecting people's opinions.
You could walk into a place to talk to someone and they could be absolutely
opposed to what you were selling--how to respectfully disagree without being
disagreeable. A lot of people don't know that, how to disagree without being
disagreeable. It's very important. And you let people talk out their frustrations
and then supply them with facts and figures and hopefully persuade them
to your way of life.
I can remember one of my first elections was when Harry Truman ran and this

old fellow told me that he's from the South and Truman's fxom the South and
he said, "I don't want no Southerners with all their prejudice," nor this not
that and all and I said, 'Well, let's just take a look at what this man has
done and what he says he's going to do. He's desegregated the Army*" I said,
"Roosevelt never did that." He said, "He's from New York." I said, "Just
because a man comes from the South--first of all, if a Southerner decides he
wants to do something that's right on a racial subject, he's more likely to
do it, absolutely do it, than a Northerner." So I carried that precinct for
Truman and that precinct had been Republican before that.
Q: Oh.?
A: Yes. A lot of black people for a long time were very motivated by Abraham
Lincoln and--Republican and people would say, "Well, my daddy would turn over
in his grave if I voted for a Democrat," and all that, you know. But we would
turn it around and made it very strongly Democratic.
Those are some of the things that I learned through that process. Just how to
get along with people and--you go into a place, you know--the husband maybe
thinks one thing and the wife thinks another. When you walk out of there, you
want to he friends with both of them.
9: (pause) Who were some of the people that helped you in this precinct work,
that worked for you?
A: No, I really don't: think of any names, really. I really did it myself. Oh,
you know, you would hire somebody from time-to-time to pass out literature or
something of that sort but I mean the philosophy, the philosophical part of it,
I handled myself, I handled it myself. I got to know people and sometimes
someone would come in and they would say, "Oh, by the way, my daughter needs
11
a divorce," or, "We would like to get a will drawn. You know, it helps you,
starts to help you develop your business, too.
Q: Yes, sir. (pause) Let's see, now, this was the 20th ward. You say
William Harvey, or was it Kenneth Campbell that was the . . .
A: Kenneth Campbell was the committeeman of the 20th ward.
Q: What type of help did he give you in your precinct work?
A: Well, as 1 say, he had a precinct school. And he taught you the fundamentals
of canvassing, how to canvass, haw to talk to people, haw to organize
your precinct. His motto was "Organize, Deputize, and Supervise." And you
would get people within your framework of your precinct to do various thlngs
for you. But you were the person most responsible, I had about four hundred
and fifty people in my precinct, five hundred, and I knew them all by their
first name, and intimately. I knew about them. Every once in awhile, you
would run into somebody who was a friend of somebody else you knew and that
gave you another kind of meeting ground. Or somebody in their family went
to school with you or something and--so it always made for little tight paints
of friendship, you see.

Q: Yes.
A: And that's really what it's about, getting to have the respect of the
people so that if I came in and I had a candidate that I was very interested
in and they said, "Well, I don't like rhat guy," I said, "well, just: do it
for me." If I'll be doing something for them, fine; something they would
like, then they would support you. That's fine.
Q: How important were social organizations, such as the church, for example?
Which church did you belong to there?
A: I joined the Congregational church. I grew up in the Baptist church but
when I came to Chicago there was a newly formed Congregational church which
had as its minister a man I knew who had been dean of religion at Fisk
University in Nashville. I had attended his services there and I was enamored
of him as a minister. I joined the church on that basis, because he was the
minister. And I rdmained there. We've had a lot of very fine ministers
since, but I remained there. Although I grew up as a Baptist, I just went to
this church, really, on a personality basis of that minister.
Q: Do you still belong to that church?
A: Yes, I do.
Q: Did the church membership help you in your precinct work?
A: Well, not overly. I suppose some. There would be some people in your
precinct who were members of the same church you were, not an awful lot, but
some. Church membership also broadened your base of acquaintanceships,
Q: Were there other organizations at that time that you joined that helped you?
A: I didn't join any other organizations at that time, no. Though a lot of
lawyers would join the Masons, or this or this, I didn't. No, I didn't join
any other at that time, no.
Q: So this would have been about 1947, along in that period?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you recall the first case that you were involved with as assistant
district attorney?
A: No, I really don't. When I first went in the office I was assigned to the
fraud and complaint department where I had an office. I talked to people
about complaints rhat they desired to file and that they thought were criminal
against them by other people. We had a series of those and then I later was
sent up to the courts, but I don't remember the first complaints I ever heard.
I heard a lot of them.

We tried to get a decision between the people who filed the complaint and the
people against whom they had filed it. Many's the time we could work it out
and make people gfve them their money back or something of that sort. But
if that didn't work, then we would go up and get a warrant written out for the
person who was the person who caused the problem and then it would go up to
the courts. Sometimes I would follow it up there and sometimes I wouldn't.
Most times I would not.
Then, after I was there a period, they sent me out to some of the courts and
I became an assistant in the courtroom. I worked in the various branch courts
and then in the criminal court itself where I tried only felonies. One year,
I and a partner won eighteen felony jury trials in a row for the State.
Q: Oh?
A: Eighteen. That was supposed to be some sort of record. And then, the
last year I was there, I was the assistant state's attorney in the chief
justice's courtroom. Then that's when I went to the legislature, after that.
Q: Was there a different type of work, then, that last year, than the preceding
?
A: Well, the chief justice court is where all cases came and they would be
farmed out to other courts and then we would try some cases before the chief
justice himself. But in the other years, I was just assigned to a courtroom
where we tried every case that came in there. Murder, rape, manslaughter,
robbery, all kinds of cases. With a large percentage of them being jury
trials.
Q: You say there are branch courts?
A: Yes, the misdemeanor courts, where they are misdemeanors instead of
felonies, some of them are in local areas--for example, I had two of those
where you would go to one first and then--you had the same judge, it's like a
circuit. You would try the cases here and then you would go to another one
after you finished there, We had two courts in the same area.
Q: (pause) Normally, cases that are brought up to the court like that, do
they come from individuals or is it the state's attorney himself that . . .
A: No, they are brought by individuals who have filed complaints against
others. Batteries and assaults and--you get a lot of cases where a couple of
women across a fence are arguing about something and one of them pulls the
other's hair, you know. Husbands and wives and all that stuff in the branch
courts.
Q: How many years were you with the state's attorney's office?
A: Eight.
Q: How did you come to go to the legislature?

A: Mr. Dawson again. Called me, said he wanted to talk to me, said, "You've
made a very fine reputation as an assistant state's attorney." Be said,
1 I
You have good name-recognition and a lot of people like you and we would
like to see you run for the legislature. Would you like to do that?'' I
said, "Yes." So I did.
See, one thing about trying criminal cases, there is a lot of notoriety.
Every week there's an article about some cases you've tried and stuff. You
do that for a number of years and people get to know you. So I had excellent
name-recognition.
Q: When was the at-large election? Was that . . .
A: Nineteen sixty-five.
Q: Nineteen sixty-five. So you weren't involved with that when you first
started out?
A: Oh, yes. Not when I first started out, no. But I was in the House when it
came along.
Q: Yes.
A: As a matter of fact, I ran one of those precinct counting stations together
with a &publican fellow. We ran a precinct counting station and we started
counting ballots at about seven o'clock on Tuesday night and they didn't
finish until Saturday about noon. And we had a full complement of people. We
had maybe a hundred and fifty, two hundred people, in the gymnasium of the
Catholic school counting these ballots. I tell you, it was really something,
really something.
Q: When you rqn for the House, how did you go about campaigning?
A: Well, I made all the meetings in the area, I got into several churches to
make my speech. We had pretty closely knit organizations and t would go to
the various organizations within the wards where I was running and make a
speech to the captains in terms of what I was expected to do, what I would do
and so forth. They, in turn, as they carried their precincts, would disseminate
that information. If someone had a block club meeting or a precinct club
meeting, I would be invited and I would go in arid speak, answer questions.
Q: What were the major issues--your platform, as it were, at that time?
A: Well, at that time we were very, very interested in trying to pass some
legislation for fair employment practices, number one. That was me of the big
and key issues. The other was civil rights and public accommodation, because
you have got to remember in 1957 that was before the 1965 civil rights bill
came down from the federal government and there were many places in Illinois
where you were not accorded your civil rights. As a matter of fact, when I
went to Springfield in 1947 to be sworn in as an attorney, I could not eat at
the same hotel with the other lawyers being sworn in. They had it in the

63
Abraham Lincoln Hotel and we were not admitted.
Q: Oh?
A: We were not invited to the hotel for the dinner with our class. And I
lived long enough to be invited to make the principal speech to a similar
class in Springfield. Some five or six years ago, I was invited to be the
principal speaker at the luncheon for the new lawyers who were being sworn
in. And I told them I thought it was interesting that I would be invited
because, when I finished, I was not able to come. And there was a lady In my
class named Jewel Lafontant who was also not able to come who became
assistant solicitor general of the United States. And I said, "I have a
little spot over here. There's a place across the street over here called
the Senate and I'm the presfdent. So, you know, maybe we are making some
progress. I'
But I also suggested to the black students in that class that, although they
were there having dinner and they were accorded their civil rights, there are
still a lot of pockets and areas of racism and discrimination and that they
had an obligation to work hard toward eliminating it, just as we did the
things that we were subjected to. That it was not all over and still isn't
all over.
Q: (pause) Were there any times during your campaign, that first time, that
you wondered whether you were going to make it or not?
A: Never. No, as a matter of fact, I'm not sure we had any opposition. I
don't think we did. During the five times I ran for state representative, I
don't think I had opposition but once. And I don't, frankly, remember that
person's name. It was not traumatic.
Q: Was that primary opposition or in the regular election?
A: Neither. Normally, in the primary, we would have no opposition, In the
regular election, there might have been two Republicans running against each
other for the third spot. But we were so very closely organized here that
getting the nod of the committeeman was all that was really necessary, And
once you had them, you had it, it was a "lock," particularly when you had a
good reputation.
Q: When it came up that this was a possibility, going down there, why did you
accept it?
A: The legislature?
Q: Yes, sir.
A: Oh, I thought it was a step forward, thought it was a very significant
thing to be one of 235 people who made the laws for the state. It was a
real attractive kind of thing from that vantage point. It also meant to me
that I could go out into the world and practice law because the legislature

only met for six months every other year. That meant eighteen months that
you would be home practicing law as a private practitioner.
When I first went, you could take your two-year salary at once, so I took
the two-year salary because I figured that I would make less money practicing
law the first year than the second year, for two reasons. One, I would only
be out a year, or a half a year, really. The other being that, the second
year, I would have a full year uninterrupted with the legislature to practice
law. So, for tax purposes, I thought it might sort of balance out better that
way. So it did and so I did that for a number of years. I would practice law
and was in the legislature. You have got to remember that in those days in
the legislature, you would go down two or three days a week for, well, I'll
say from January up until about April, you were never down there but one or
twa days a week. You were home doing your regular practice the rest of the
time.
Q: Now, let's see, you initially practiced with Mr. Clayton. Was there a
change or did you still work with his firm?
A: No, I came out. I opened my own business.
Q: Oh, you did?
A: Yes. Mr. Clayton passed just before I got out of the state" attorney's
office. He had passed.
Q: So you opened up your own office. Where was it located?
A: At 100 North ZaSalle Street. I went in with a fellow by the name of Louis
Leider, Jewish fellow.
Q: (pause) How long did that partnership extend?
A: It wasn't a partnership. I worked out of that office as an associate.
Well, I was there a couple of years and then I moved down to another suite in
the building with a fellow named Sidney Jones who is now a judge. And I
practiced there for . . . well, let's see. I was in that building from 1957
until 1977, twenty years, and then we moved over to 1 North LaSalle.
developed my own firm of Partee and Green.
Q: You say that would last until 1977?
A: Well, no, we still practice under the name of Partee and Green but we're
individual practitioners for the reason that I came to other places, he went
to represent an insurance company and he is now general counsel of that
insurance company, so we don't have a partnership, but we do have an associat
ion.
Q: When you first started out, it was still in the Kelly-Nash era, wasn't it?
A: No, no.
I

Q: That had already finished?
A: No, Arvey was the national committeeman when I started out.
Q: Did you know him very well?
A: I knew him--yes, 1 knew him very well.
Q: What kind of person was he?
A: Very knowledgeable, very bright . . . a good politician. See, it was he
who decided in 1948 that they had to have some outstanding people to run for
office. And he picked two people. Paul Douglas, who had been a member of the
city council, and Adlai Stevenson, who had been secretary of treasure and with
the federal government in the--what is it? Not the United Nations, hut
something comparable to that, you know. Stevenson was supposed to have been
the United States senator and Douglas was to have peen the governor and then
they changed it at the last minute and switched them and made Stevenson the
governor and Douglas the senator. And they won overwhelmingly. That was in
1948 and they won. Of course, you knew the history from then.
Q: Yes. Did you know Paul Douglas personally?
A: Oh, I knew him personally. Fine man. Just a great, great man. He's
just almost incomparable. Very fine man. I knew Stevenson, too, and I
thought he was one of the brightest men I've ever met in my life. Maybe too
bright for the American people. You know, he ran in 1952 and 1956 for president
and I'm not sure everybody understood him. He was so bright. I don't
think he ever talked down to people, but I think you havFto be understood by
people--the masses.
Q: Do you know why that switch was made?
A: No, I do not. NO, I do not. I really don't. I've thought about it a
lot af times. I really don't know.
Q: Wasn't Mr. Douglas' wife involved in politics also?
A: Oh, yes, she was a congressman-at-large at one time, yes. Emily Taft
Douglas, bright lady, very bright woman.
Q: Did you know her?
A: Yes, I knew her. In some women's causes, I had worked with her in several
areas.
Q: Do you recall specific areas, examples?
A: Yes, for example, the increased involvement of women in politics.
Q: Who was governor when you went down to . . .

A: Bill Stratton.
Q: I assume you knew him pretty well, too.
A: Oh, I knew him very well,
Q: What type of person was he?
A: I always got along with Bill Stratton, always. I remember the first
session I was there. I had three bills that I had passed and I went in to talk
to him and he had an assistant with him, a fellow we called "Smokey" Downey. I
was just delighted that the governor signed all three of my bills.
Q: Oh? What were those bills? Do you recall?
A: (chuckles) I knew you were going to ask me that. (pause) One of them had
to do with a closer inspection of casualty insurance companies. Prior to
that time a casualty campany could open up in Illinois and operate far two
years before they were audited very closely by the state. And many of them
had just come in and milked the public and took the money the first eighteen
months and then phased out the last six and not fulfilled their claims and
not paid off their claims and so forth. So the one bill changed that. We
had a lot of people, in my community particularly, who had bought insurance
from companies and had not gotten service and had not gotten claims honored.
The other two--you know, I don't remember. (chuckles) I really don't remember
what they were.
Q: Do you recall how that bill came up, the one on the casualty insurance
companies ?
A: Well, it just was obvious to me that there had been a lot of reason for
having a bill like that, so that you could get rid of those fly-by-night
operators.
Q: What were the mechanics of preparation of the bill to get . . .
A: Well, you would get your idea together and you would go into the Legislative
Reference Bureau and there were lawyers in that bureau who would draw the bill
in the language that would be most acceptable for statutory enactment. You
would introduce your bill, take it to committee, and you would testify on it
or you would have other people to testify for it. Get the favorable vote nut
of the committee, get it back to the floor and resist any amendments that you
would feel would not be palatable and get it passed in that house and then you
would go to the second house and do the same thing.
Q: Did you have any particular problem with that bill, that first one?
A: Well, I guess I did have a little bit at first--1'm trying to remember
who was against it. But I got it passed.
You know, you've opened up a whole new subject to me.
I've had so much

legislation, I think one day what I would like to do is go down to Springfield
and just get somebody to start in 1957 and give me a list of all the bills
I've personally handled and those that I've been a big supporter of. So many
of them now, it's just--I can't remember them all. There are thousands.
There's one way I can do that. My wife has probably got about fifteen scrapbooks
for me. She used to keep all that information and I could probably go
through those scrapbooks and churn out a lot of the high points. Because,
for example, when I first went to the legislature, I felt that people in the
community did not know enough about what the legislative process was about.
And so I wrote a series of articles for the Chicago Defender, the local paper
out our way, on the legislative process, you know. In a very elementary kind
of way, so the people could understand, you know, what we were about and how
it's done and so forth. Gradually, the articles became more sophisticated as
I discussed the intricacies and nuances of the pending legislation.
Q: Did you have any other activities like that to keep the people informed as
to what was going on or what you felt was important?
A: In later years, I would get out a little three or four page tome about what
my activities had been, highlights of the legislative session.
Q: And was that published by the Defender?
A: No, no. That was published by me personally. We would just get it out to
everybody in the district.
SESSION 4, TAPE 4, SIDE 1
Q: Sir, I got a little bit ahead of the chronology of things yesterday and
I would like to go back and pick up two primary subjects today. First of all
I would like to know something about your wife and her family background, and
then secondly I would like to go back into your political base, the ward and
the early days of that, if that's all right, sir.
A: That's okay.
Q: When was your wife born, sir?
A: My wife was born in 1927. May 10.
Q: And your wife's name is . . .
A: Paris, first name. Middle name, Angelina.
Q: And her maiden name was Bradley.
A: Bradley.

Q: Where was she born, sir?
A: She was born in Chicago.
Q: Had the Bradleys been in Chicago long when she was born?
A: I don't really know. Her father was from New Orleans. I never met him,
he died before we were married,
A: What line of work was he in3
A: He was a chef cook.
Q: So your wife went to school here in Chicago then altogether.
A: Chicago.
Q: Yes. (pause) And where did you meet your wife?
A: Through mutual frfends.
Q: When was this?
A: 1949.
Q: Do you remember the occasion?
A: (pause) I went to a restaurant for lunch and she was with a friend of mine
and his girl friend having lunch. He introduced me to the t w ladies ~ and
that's when I first met her.
Q: Did ehe live near where you were living at the time?
A: Oh, twenty blocks or so away.
Q: Was it love at first sight sort of thing or did it gradually dewlap?
A: Well, r thought she was a very interesting person and I wanted to know her
again and to meet her again and it developed, I met her in September and we
got married in December.
A: Yes.
Q: Goadness, that's another kind of parallel. I met my wife in October, we
were married in April. (laughter) A little longer. Well! So it was a
rather whirlwind . . . Let's see now. Was that the year that you were running
for election?

A: No, that was about two years before I first ran for election. I first ran
in 1956, we were married in 1955--a year be£ ore, I guess.
Q: Why did you decide to get married in December? Usually it's a June wedding
if the . . .
A: I don't really know except that we thought that we were ready and we did.
Q: Yes. Let's see, she went to high school here in Chicago. Did she go to
college?
A: She went to a business school.
Q: Here in Chicago itself.
A: Chicago, yes.
9: Yes. Where did you live when you were first married?
A: At 516 ?&st 62nd Street.
Q: What type of quarters was that? Apartment?
'A: An apa.rtment, yes.
Q: Can you descrfbe what the apartment was like?
A: Well, it was a four-room apartment in a twelve-flat huilding. It was a
nice, neat apartment. We did some substantial wark these to make it very
comfortable.
Q: And how long did you live there?
A: Lived there until 1957 when we moved to a larger place, a six-room apartment,
at 5836 Michigan Avenue. We lived there until 1959, when we built: a
place, a two-flat condominium, with another couple and that's where we still
live,
9: So you've had three homes, then?
A: Three homes, that's correct.
Q: What did she think about your going into the legislature a year after , . .
A: She was very interested in my doing what I thought I might want to do. She
was very supportive.
Q: What was she doing when you first knew her? What type of wark?
A: She worked at Michael Reese Hospital in the serum center.

Q: Is her mother still living?
A: Her mother still is alive, yes.
Q: Still here in Chicago, I guess.
A: Yes.
Q: All right, sir. Let's see, when was it that you asked for the precinct
committeeman position? What year?
A: Probably the fall of 1947.
Q: When did you first think that this might be a good move to make?
A: Well, I suppose right after I got out of law school. I started reading
some books about how to build a law practice and one of the statements that
kept recurring was that a young lawyer should be a "joiner," you should join
as many organizations as you felt was necessary to get to know some people
and get some exposure to the population. And I suppose that's probably the
motivation, I saw this joining an organization as being something in that
vein. 1 think I ought to point out that when I started joining various
organizations, including the political organization, 1 had no idea of ever
going into politics.
A: It was a matter of just trying to get to know some people.
Q: I see, yes. (pause) Now, were you living in the precinct that was
assigned you at that time?
A: Yes, I was.
0: How was it decided that you would have that precinct?
A: Well, T suppose nobody else wanted it, frankly. It had been an overwhelmingly
Republican precinct in the election before that and I guess they were
just pretty glad to get somebody who wanted to take it. They had snmeane
there who was just sort of there as a part-time person, to help them out a
little bit, but they never had anyone just assigned to it who had rhe same
kind of interest I had in developing it. So, it was just sort of a natural
that they would give me that precinct.
Q: Who was the Republican precinct committeeman when you . . .
A: It was a woman by the name of Viola Montoya. She incidently was one of the
best Republican precinct captains in the City of Chicago.
Q: a, is that right?

A: Yes.
q: Did she continue active after you . . .
A: Very much so; very, very active. A very hard worker and a very difficult
adversary.
Q: Did you get to know her quite well?
A: I got to know her quite well.
Q: In what way was she a difficult adversary?
A: Well, the lady's dead and I don't want to say anything unkind about her,
but I can remember once putting some literature in a mailbox in an entrance
where there were six families, Five of them were home that I talked to and
one was not there. I left the literature for the one family and I came back
to see if they had gotten home, to go to talk to them, and she was taking the
literature out of the box, tearing it up. I suggested to her that I thought
that was improper and she went into a rage and said some things to me, I
think, calculated to make me angry, to cause me to strike her or something. I
think she thought that that would be something that she could use against me.
I just told her that I wasn't going to do anything like that but that I didn't
appreciate it. She was tough; she was a tough old gal.
Q: Was she an older person?
A: Well, no, she was older than T was but I guess--at that time, I was twentythree
or four years old, something like that. She was about, probably,
thirty-five or forty, something like that.
Q: And she had been there for quite some time then, I guess.
A: Yes, quite some time.
Q: What was the social make-up of the precinct?
A: Well, it was all black and there were middle to middle-upper class people.
Q: What type homes were mostly in this area?
A: Mostly two-flat buildings and owner-occupied. There were a few multiple
apartment buildings, like some twelves or some sixteens, but basically and
fundamentally they were mastly two-flat, home-owner.
Q: What was your first encounter with Mrs. Montoya?
A: Well, I suppose maybe the first memorable encounter was that situation I
have just described to you. She was a person who was very conscientious for
her party. The thing that used to trouble me, there was always some sort of
a little nasty kind of statement that she would make, about either the party

or the candidates or about me, that wasn't so. I had not really been accustomed
to that kind of thing but I just let it roll off me like water off a
duck's back and went ahead and did my own job.
Q: You started in 1947, so the first big election to be worked was the 1948
election, I guess.
A: That's true.
q: Yes. And up until that time you say that most of the voting had been
Republican?
A: Very heavily Republican in that precinct, yes.
Q: What happened in the 1948 election?
A: In the 1948 election, we won with Truman two-to-one in that precinct.
Q: And you think it was largely due to your getting out and knowing people
and talking to them?
A: I would be unfair to myself if I didn't say that I had done a damq good
job in there.
Q; Did it continue--well, it did continue Democratic from that point on. Did
it get stronger?
A: Became increasingly more Democratic as each election went on.
Q: How long did you serve as the precinct committeeman?
A: Until . . . 01, at least for the next ten years, T'm sure.
Q: (pause) Then you did take over the ward at . . .
A: Became the cormnitteeman in January of 1971.
Q: In 1971. What did you do between 1957 and 1971, then?
A: I was president of the ward organization. Worked in the office generally.
Q: And what type of work was that: then?
A: Well, talking to the other captains and supervising and helping, and making
speeches throughout the ward.
Q: Did you conduct a training program or was that . . .
A: I was a part of that production on the training program, yes.

Q: Was this in replacement of Mr. Campbell?
A: No, Mr. Campbell--when I became committeeman?
Q: Yes.
A: Yes, Mr. Campbell died in December of 1970. December 31, 1970. And I was
made acting ward committeeman as of the eighth or tenth of January.
A: Yes.
Q: So, president of the organization, how does that relate to the committeeman
position?
A: Well, the president of the organization is in charge of the programs as they
develop within the ward. When the candidates would come out, I would have the
opportunity to introduce them, to talk to the ward about various kinds of
current events to keep them informed so they could talk to their peaple from
a vantage point of knowledge and understanding of the issues which arose on a
day-to-day basis. So whenever we had the meetings, I would call the meeting
to order and discuss various things and, of course, the committeeman would
come out and he would discuss them also. But: I was sort of preliminary,
Q: How often did you have these meetings?
A: Well, we usually met a couple of times a month. There was about two meetings
a month. In election time, perhaps, sometimes even more often.
Q: And where were these meetings held?
A: We had a ward headquarters. Initially, it was at 59th and State Street
and then we later moved over to 32% East Garfield Boulevard at a storefront
that was. fixed up for an office for the committeeman and a meeting hall for
the precinct committeemen, or captains as we call them in Chicago.
Q: Did you have an office in . . .
A: Never did have an office in there, no.
Q: So you operated somewhat out of your own office then, your law office?
A: No, I operated out of that headquarters but I didn't have any specific
office assigned to me there. There were always a couple of offices that anybody
could use in case they wanted to have meetings or something of that sort.
But I didn't have a specific office where I went there every day.
Q: When you first started out as a precinct committeeman, how closely did you
work with the other precinct captains?

A: Well, we would meet at the same time and we would discuss various kinds of
approaches to make in the precinct as the kinds of problems arose. You would
get advice and you would give advice to others based on your own experiences.
But the committeeman was responsible for the coordination of the whole ward.
Q: Who were some of the other captains at that time when you first started out?
A: Oh, there were a lot of people that worked, See, the ward was always about
fifty-eight or fifty-nine precincts. There's diminishing significance in the
names, I, think of the others, as many have passed on, retired, and so forth.
There are just fifty-eight or fifty-nine other captains.
Q: So when you became president, then, you were more or less in charge of the
fifty-eight or fifty-nine precinct captains.
A: No, the committeeman was always in charge. I didn't really have any
"in-charge" position, I just had the job to do of making the speeu.hes and
lining up the issues and discussing the issues and keeping people informed as
to the kinds of questions they were likely to encounter and the kinds of
answers that they ought to accurately give.
Q: In your position as president, was there a higher level part of the organization
that you discussed things with?
A: Only with the committeeman.
Q: Only with the committeemen themselves, That is the ward cornitteemen?
A: Ward committeeman, the ward camitteeman, yes.
Q: So you worked very closely with Mr. Campbell, then, a ll those years.
A: I did, indeed.
Q: Do you remember any distinctive captains that worked under you that were
outstanding in any way?
A: Yes, but I would hesitate to mention any of them because I'm going to
forget some and that would just make them uncomfortable.
Q: What was the social structure of the total ward? Was it very similar to
what that precinct was?
A: Very similar, yes, very so--well, not the total ward. The area where I was,
I say, was middle to upper-middle class, but there were parts of our ward
that were middle class and below, where the housing was not as good, the
people did not earn as much money. It was a totally black ward, though.
Q: Oh, the entire ward was also . . .
A: Yes. You would have an isolated person, like somebody might be married to a

Filipino or some man may be married to a white woman pr some woman may be
married to a white man or something. That was very, very, very seldom seen.
It was basically black. It would be 99% black.
Q: And were most of these, then, fairly recent arrivees in Chicago?
1
I
E A: Well, no, not all of them. A lot of people had been born in Chicago.
There were a large number of people who had come up from other states,
generally from the South. They, you know, covered the full spectrum. They
were from maids and cooks to school principals and people who did--doctors,
lawyers, all kinds of people. You know, pretty much across the board kind
of population.
/i
9: Was there much industry in that section?
A: Industry in the context of manufacturing, no. There were a lot of
businesses. Within that particular area, there were four streets that had
substantial business interests, from drugstores to cleaners and all kinds of
regular service businesses.
Q: Of the other ward committeemen, were there any that you were becoming
well acquainted with at that time?
I1
A: Well, yes. As a matter of fact, at that time there were only about three
or four black ward committeemen in Chicago and I knew them all and attended
their annual affairs and that kind of thing. It was almost a social kind of
thing, too, because each ward would have a massive fund-raiser every year, a
social affair, either a dance or a dinner dance or something of that sort. And
we would always at tend those.
Q: Who were these other black committeemen?
A: Well, af course, Congressman Dawson was committeeman of the 2nd ward and
Ralph Metcalf became the committeeman of the 3rd ward, after he replaced a man
named Committeeman WPmbish, Senator Wimbish. And Attorney Holman was the
committeeman of the 4th ward and an engaging undertaker by the name of Bob
Miller was the committeeman of the 6th ward. Those were the four wards that
had black committeemen at the time I first started. And that, of course, grew
and developed to the point where now there are about fifteen black ward
cormnit teemen.
Q: Were you, as president, then, involved with holding this annual fundraising
dinner ?
A: Oh, I was involved, sure. There were occasions when I was to speak or
there were occasions when I was the master of ceremonies, generally, of our
fund-raisers. We did various kinds of fund-raisers, they weren't always a
dinner. Most of the time it was a dinner dance but on other occasions we
would have--I remember once we had a wrestling show and another occasion we
had a theater party. We sort of varied the themes so that people didn't get
bored,

Q: This was an annual fund-raising affair. Were there other smaller affairs
such as precinct fund-raising activities?
A: Not very much in a precinct, fund-raising activities, no. Just generally
for a ward activity of one sort or another.
Q: By 1957, Mr. Daley had become mayor. When did you first meet him?
A: He became mayor in 1955. I think I met him in 1955 when he first ran for
mayor. He came to our ward to speak and I met him.
Q: Did you have much to do with Mayor Daley and the higher level of the
organization as president?'
A: Not until 1971when I became a committeeman. Then I had more direct
contact.
Q: You had committee meetings periodically, then, with all the committeemen?
A: Yes, you would have a county--see, when you are a committeeman you became
an automatic member of the county central committee and the central city
committee--city committee and the county committee. And, of course, the
presiding officer in each of those was the mayor.
Q: So in 1971 on, then, you were involved in those type meetings?
A: Yes.
Q: How often did they meet?
A: Oh, two or three times a year.
Q: Only that often?
A: Yes. More often just prior to an election or something significant like
that.
Q: Yes, T was just going to ask, as the elections came up, on slate-making
and that sort of thing, there would be mare.
A: There were more frequent meetings, yes.
Q: In the slate-making procese, was this done primarily by the entire group?
A: By the county central committee, that's correct.
Q: Was there much controversy in committee action on that?
A: No, there was not. The mayor who was also chairman would put out feelers
in terms of picking candidates and he wou1.d normally have some recommendations
and most of those recommendations were pretty sound and there was not a great

deal of controversy about them.
Q: So there was not an awful lot of debate involved in slate-making.
A: Sometimes a political organization, to be effective, has to be more autacratic
than democratic.
Q: And this was quite autocratic, then?
A: I didn't say "quite" autocratic, but it was as atxtorratic as democratic,
and it worked and most participants liked it that way, as rickets were both
ethnically and geographically balanced.
Q: I see, yes, sir. And where were those meetings held?
A: The Cook County central cornittee always had a suite in one of the hotels,
had a meeting area in the hotels. At one time we were in the Morrisan Hotel
before it was torn down and then we moved to the Sherman Hotel and then to
the LaSalle Hotel. And then to the Bismarck, where we now have aur suite of
offices.
Q: As time went: by, you say, there was a growing number of black comrnitt~ernen,
Other than the ones that you've already named, who were some of thase that
came in?
A: Well . . . The next ward, I guess, after the 6th ward was the 21st ward.
There was a fellow there by the name of Joe Robichaux, then Bennett Stewart,
And then the 34th ward in which the committeeman was Wilson Frost. And then
the 7th ward which was Joseph Bertrand. Then the 17th ward which is William
Shannon. The 1.6th ward which is James Taylor. And then the 28th ward which
was Isaac Sims. Then the 29th ward. Let's see, are those the only wards?
(pause) Eighth ward, John Stroger.
Q: And these were all black?
A: All black committeemen.
Q: So there's been a steady growth then of blacks in the committee structure
of the Democratic party.
A: That's right.
Q: I believe it was one of Rakove's books where he relates the movement of
blacks into Chicago to the earlier migrations of ethnic groups, Irish and so
on, and indicates that in time this will be a black-controlled city. Do you
feel that would be true?
A: Yes, I do. T think certainly the hlack population is large enough to have
the capability of electing a black mayor. Yes, I certainly think so. Mare
than that, I think there perhaps are black candidates who would have the
acceptability of a substantial part of the white populace who would vote ifor

a black mayor. We just saw that happen two days ago in Birmingham, where
there was not a majority, but even more dramatically in a situation in Los
Angeles, where the black population is only 20 percent and there is a black
mayor there. That's because of the individual and his acceptability by the
general population.
Q: Again we're getting a little ahead but do you feel that--now, the black
population has grown here in Chicago itself and generally each ethnic group
that's come into Chicago has started in the central part and then moved
outward. Do you think in time that will happen with the blacks also? That
they will . . .
A: Oh, I think certainly it's a certain percentage of blacks who will move
out of the city. That's happening right now. Many of the suburban areas
are getting more and more black population all the time, and they are people
who moved from the central city. The same kind of thing that motivates
white people to move out of the city into the county, for schools or whatever
else they feel they need there, motivates black people, too. So, for blacks,
it's more economic than racial.
Q: Going back again to the early days of your precinct committee business,
why was it that the Democrats replaced the Republicans?
A: Well, I suppose really the changes started to come as early as the third
term of Roosevelt. There had been, as you know, a rather monumental depression
commencing in the 1930's and by the end of the 1930ts, when Roosevelt had
instituted a lot of programs that were of direct help to poor people, there
came about a transition and a lot of people switched from Republican to
Democrat. But it really didn't hit until about the 1940's. They stayed with
the Republican party during the first couple of terms of Roosevelt. He was
elected in, what, 1932? I would say, the 1932 and the 1936 election, there
were a large number of black people who moved over to the Democratic party.
But starting in the 1940 election and by 1944, it was almost a fait accompli.
Q: So that was the availability of welfare and that sort of thing that . . .
A: No, no, no. Not welfare as much as increased job opportunities and other
kinds of governmental programs, like the FHA [Federal Housing Administration 1,
where people could borrow and buy homes and the bank holiday and subsequent
action that vouchsafed money deposited in banks and the fact that the government
would guarantee that your deposits would not be wiped out in a bank when
banks folded and all. The other economic stabilizers that Roosevelt put into
being, I think, were a great deal more important than anythfng else he might
have done. T don't think that welfare had much to do with it, it was not a
big issue then.
Q: Was there much need for welfare in the 20th ward?
A: Well, there was some--certainly it isn't equal to what it is today. People
were not attuned as much to governmental help as they are today. People sort
of felt that they had to run their own lives and had to work at perhaps not

well paying jobs but they had to do something. Most people felt an obligation
to care for themselves and that is in contradistinction to today, where most
people feel that the government sort of owes them a living. That's not only
the 20th ward, that's kind of all over the country. And that includes everybody,
including Chrysler Corporation, you know; that's welfare too, you know.
Q: What did you think of the Chrysler situation? 1s that . . ,
A: Well, it's not an easy kind of solution and I don't think anyone should just
flippantly say it's good or it's bad. I think it does suggest to us though
that, in a country where we operate on the laissez-faire system, where we
believe that every business should stand on its own two feet and they should
rise or fall on the basis of their own success or competence, it's sort of
fading. 1 think that we somehow feel that there are some other issues involved,
other than just the business fading. One of those issues, of course,
is that, if a business is permitted to go out of business for whatever reason,
there will be a large number of people discommoded, a large number of people
without employment. And we are quite concerned that we do not increase our
unemployment rolls and, for that reason, business gets more governmental help
for one reason or the other. But, you know, twenty years ago in this country
it would be unthinkable for a government to try to prop up a business, particularly
one in private enterprise.
Perhaps you know, government has always helped in other kinds of ways. You
take one of the most outstanding kinds of businesses now, though it's e
mutual, is rural electrification, REA. That came about back -in the 1930's
and 1940's when the major utility companies did not offer the kind of service
in the inner farm community that people felt ought to be extended. The telephone
line or the electric line may run right straight down the highway hut
they didn't get to that farm way over in the inner area off the main arteries,
People banded together and government lent the REA money at 2 percent so they
could build these additional kinds of service organizations to give electricity
to the inner farmer. Now they are very strong and very wealthy and,
perhaps in some instances, have forgotten that their start came from the
government who is still trying to help people who are depressed and underemployed
and without the means to help themselves, So the government has done
that all the time in those kinds of situations.
But that's a mutual, it's not privately owned. It's owned by all the farmers
involved in the area, Chrysler is a different kind of a situation because it
is privately owned by stockholders. It's a for-profit organization, whereas
RFA is supposed to be basically not-for-profit but for service. It's a
profitable business for those involved. So the government has always been
involved somehow in keeping things going and there's nothing new about that.
Q: Relating that situation back to your precinct committeeman time, was there
anything of that nature that went on in the precinct? Was there anything that
you worked for to get far the precinct people?
A: Well, those people who were looking for help in areas like jobs, we would
try to help them find them, whether they would be in government or in private

industry. We were concerned about making sure the curbs and gutters were kept
in good order, that the streets and alleys were clean, that the trees were
pruned, that the garbage was picked up. We were always concerned about
getting new sewers and the kinds of things that would keep the houses from
having overflows in their basements and things of that sort. Those are among
the more basic reasons. You would organize clean-up, fix-up campaigns and
the kinds of help that a city could give to the people to make the quality of
life more palatable. Over the years we started building neighbarhood health
centers and making sure that the social services were granted people.
We always kept a lady in our office who was there to answer questions as to
where people could go to get certain things done. Like, you know, the social
security questions and the welfare questions and other kinds of social
questions that people would encounter and wouldn't know how to go about doing
them. We would make sure that we wauld be there to give them that information.
Q: Do you remember any specific problems that arose at that time th8t were
difficult to solve?
A: Well, the problems pretty much remain the same throughout the caurse af
history. People have the same kinds of basic needs for the improvement
of the quality of life. You know, you've got a kid finishing high school,
where should he write, where should he go to try to get a scholarahip--ah,
just the same problems over and over.
Q: Were there major educational problems in the precinct?
A: Major educational problems, no. You would give people whatever kind of
advice you could about schooling and where to go to school or how to get
into those schools, for trades, for other job skills, and things of that sort.
But 1 wouldn't say major educational problems, no.
Q: There was a fairly good school system, then, in that . . .
A: Well, that all depends on your point of view. Pretty much across the
nation there's a feeling among a lot of people that the schools, particularly
the high schools today, are not of the same caliber and quality that they were
years ago, and I think, perhaps, that may be so, Or maybe our methods for
evaluating education are not constant or we're evaluating education based on
how we saw it rather than the way it is today. I personally think, though,
that the schools are not as sound as they were 20 years ago, or 30 years ago,
anywhere in the country, so far as the high schools are concerned. Their
methodology of just sort of pushing kids along and not letting anybady fail
and making sure they get out is, I think, probably responsible for it. 1
notice out in Ohio the other day somebody filed a suit against a school board;
a fellow said that his son was graduated from high school and he couldn't read.
And he felt that he was entitled to be compensated for that. So that is what
that's about.
Q: Yes, sir. Sir, when you went to become a precinct committeeman, you at
that time didn't join any other organizations. How soon was it that you

joined other organizations for the purpose of . . .
A: Well, I didn't join any other organizations for the purpose of getting well-
known. I was already a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and, of
course, that was a social group that I had joined in college and it had a
chapter here.
Q: oh?
A: So I was a member of that and a couple of other clubs, One was The
Assembly, which was a very large club of up-and-coming progressive men.
But that was about the extent of my clubs.
Q: Where was the Kappa Alpha Psi chapter?
A: It was located in Chicago and we had a house over at 47th and Ellis
Avenue.
Q: So it wasn't connected with a particular school?
A: No, Men from all over the country, who belonged to that fraternity, when
they came to Chicaga they would join that particular Chicago alumni chapter.
Q: Oh, I see, alumni chapter.
A: Yes.
Q: And it was quite active, then?
A: ah, quite active. Some of the leading business and professional men i n
Chicago in my community were members.
Q : Can you name some of them?
A: Oh, sure. There was--now, that--there again, I hate to name them because
T'm going to leave out some very important ones in there.
Q: Yes, sir.
A: I would rather not name then. Let me just say that there were a large
number of doctors and lawyers and school principals and school teachers and
businessmen who were members.
Q: Yes. Were there any that were particularly helpful to you?
A: Yes, there's one fellow, whose name is C. Roger Wilson, who was a very
highly placed state employee in the state unemployment office. He was a very
highly placed man in that and when I came--it was through him that I got my
first job when I came up to Chicago that one summer, through that connecltian.
Q: And he was in a Chicago office here or a state office?
I

8 2
A: It was a state office but located in Chicago.
Q: Oh, I see, yes. Was the Illinois Building operating at that time?
A: 160 North LaSalle.
Q: Yes.
A: I assume it was, but I wasn't in it at that time,
Q: And what was The Assembly, you say? Where did it meet?
A: At various places. We used to meet at an insurance company, at their
auditorium, of an insurance company. It was pretty social, a fairly social
club .
Q: Yes. Were these regul.ar monthly meetings?
A: T don't remember meeting that often. Maybe two or three times a year and
they would have a big Christmas dance. I remember that was the big function,
the Christmas dance.
Q: Did they bring in speakers?
A: No, that wasn't that kind 05 a club. No.
Q: Was there a particular rype of place where you made more speeches than
others?
A: Oh, I suppose I've made more speeches in ward headquarters than in other
pl.aces. And in churches. That would, principally, be the most, during my
youth--talking about formative days, now?
Q: Yes.
A: Yes. Yes, at churches and ward headquarters wauld be principally the
places where I would speak.
Q: And your audience at ward headquarters, was that predominently the precinct
captains and that sort of thing?
A: Well, in most of the meetings, yes, but then we wauld have rallies.
SESSION 4, TAPE 4, SIDE 2
A: In the rallies, I would be talking to a pretty diverse group of people.
Q: Were these rallies on special occasions?

A: Generally just before an election.
Q: So it was a rally in support of the election?
A: Yes.
Q: Let's see, now. We touched on your activities in the 1948 election. Let's
see, the next one would have been an off year election.
Q: In 1950, yes.
A: But that would be principally for local candidates, you see.
Q: Do you remember any specific condidates that you were very active in
supporting at that time?
A: No. No, I do not, because we were supportive of an entire ticket. It is
very rare that we ever give any particular emphasis to any one candidate
except if he had a special problem. We voted for the Democratic ticket, to
support the entire ticket. The message was, "Vote Democratic, pull the lever
for the whole ticket." That's the way we did it. And that was, of course,
the strength of this organization. I mean this whole Chicago organization
supporting the entire ticket.
Q: And you had no real problem with that? The preclnct was headed in that
direction by that time?
A: Oh, yes. You would always have somebody that wanted, you know, ta take
care of one person or this, that and the other, or pick a guy because he was
a Methodist or because he was a Rotarian or because he was a Lion ar something,
Yo11 know. But basically and fundamentally, we carried the whole ticket. It
was a party operation.
Q: Were you active at the ward level in the media, like the geefender or the
Tribune and that sort of thing? Did you approach them actively for support or
provide information?
A: Well, are you now talking about after T becape a legislator? Tn that
period ?
Q: No, sir, still in that early period.
A: Not in that period, no.
Q: So from the ward, then . . .
A: You would get an article when you had an affair, in order ta tell wha
talked about, that kind of thing, but generally, no.

Q: So I guess placing advertisements for those that were running, and that
sort of thing, would be done at . . .
A: That would have been done by the candidates themselves. We didn't get
involved with that, no.
Q: So actually, other than the rallies and the about twice a month meetings,
that was the extent of the formal activity of the committee structure?
A: Yes, except for call meetings to deal with specific problems that arose from
time to time.
Q: (pause) Okay. When you ran for the legislature, who did you replace?
A: Well, it really wasn't a replacement as such. In 1955, the legislature
redistricted and as a result 05 the redistricting we got mare distrkts in
Chicago than we had had before. And I was in a district and was chosen as one
of the two Democrats in that district, So I actually did not replace anyone
because it was a brand new district.
Q: And this was the 22nd district?
A: The 22nd district, that's correct.
Q: And who was the other Democrat that ran with you?
A: His name was Charles Armstrong. He was a lawyer also and was very, very
interested in the education committee and he was a member of the education
committee and passed a bill that, back in those days, was called the Armstrong
Law, which if properly implemented would have saved a lot of the grief we have
in Chicago now about so-called school problems today.
Q: And there was a Republican, then, that ran at the same time?
A: Yes, his name was J. Horace Gardner.
Q: Did you know him very well?
A: Knew him very well. He was the Republican committeeman of the 20th ward.
Q: Crh, I see. And this, because of the cumulative voting, was two Democrats
and one Republican from that area.
A: That's correct.
Q: And, at that time, there were only the three that ran in the regular
election, then?
A: Right.
Q: So really there was no opposition to any of them?

A: No, I don't think we had opposition but once during that first five terms.
Q: In that first election, roughly, what was the division between the Republican
and Democratic vote? Was there much Republican vote at all?
A: Not much, no. I would rather go back and check the secretary of state's
figures than to guess at it, but it probably was eight or ten-to-one, something
lfke that probably.
Q: Even at that time.
Ai Yes.
Q: And you went to the legislature, then, in January, T guess?
A: January, 1957.
Q: Was that your first time In Springfield?
A: No, I had been to Springfield in 1947 to be swwn in as a lawyer.
Q: Oh, I see. Yes, sir. But, except for that, you had not been to Springfield
?
A: I don't remember whether I had been there in connecttan with any legal work
or not. I'm aot sure. 1 don't think so, though.
Q: Where did you stay when you first went to Springfield in 1957?
A: At the St. Nicholas Hotel.
Q: And that was Democratic headquarters, mare or less, at that time, wasn't it?
A: It was Democratic headquarters, yes.
Q: What did you do the first day you arrived down there?
A: Well, I was sworn in and I had a group of about ten or twelve friends from
Chicago who came down for my swearing in. My mother and dad came up from
St. Louis and after we were sworn in--we had our preliminary meeting--we went
back over to the hotel and we all had a big dinner, a little celebration.
Q: Preliminary meeting? Of what nature?
A: No, I said a dinner. We just went back to the hotel and had a dinnqr with
my friends.
Q: ah, I see, yes. (pause) Who were the people that were closest know to
you when you first went down to Springfield? Of the others that went don
that: year?

A: Of course, I knew. Corneal Davis.
A: And Fred Smith . . . and a fellow by the name of Kenneth Wilson. 1
suppose I knew them better than I did anybody else. Except this. You see,
I had been eight years in the state's attorney's office and there were some
legislators I came in contact with through the courts that I would have
known, yes.
Q: What I was driving at was, when you first arrived down there, how did you
go about ].earning the process of legislation? Or were you pretty familiar
with that before you went down?
A: No, there were some guides like--not a book but maybe a brochure that
explained some of the things. The --- Blue Book has a section In it on how a bill
passes and how the legislature functions and that sort of thing and I had read
all of that.
Q: The Legislative Council .now has an introductory . . . ,
A: Course. Yes, but they didn't have it at that time, or certainly not as
sophisticated or elongated.
Q: So you were kind of on your own as to figuring out exac*tly what you were
going to do.
A: We got a lot of guidance, in particular from Carneal Davis.
Q: Oh? What types of things did he alert you to?
A: Oh, about making sure that you thoroughly understood the hill before you
voted on it and not popping off on every question, which undermines your
effectiveness. Sometimes you can talk so often down there that when you get
up, people don't listen. If you talk less often and you know what you're
talking about, you get more of an audience and you get more appreciation of
what you say and more support of what you said. That kind of thing.
Q: Would you say you got most of your information, then, from Mr. Davis?
A: Oh, 1 got more information from him than I did from anyone else. I got a
lot of information by reading and by watching and listening and observing.
Q: How long, after that first day you arrived down there, did you go into the
session or start your work?
A: We had session the first day I was there.
Q: What was that . . .
A: They open up the session and then they pay you. First job I've ever been on

where they paid you far two years the first day you got there.
(laughter)
Q: Do you recall that first day? What happened on the first day?
A: Oh, nothing significant. I guess we were in the process of organizing, I
guess, and electing our speaker and so forth.
Q; Were you assigned a seat?
A: You're assigned a seat. T got a seat beside my friend Kenny Wilson who
came from the next district up, the 21st. He had been in the legislature two
years earlier, so it was a good spot for me because he was knowledgeable, Be
is now an appellate court judge. He*s s very knowledgeable fellow and I
got a lot of help from him.
Q: And which committees were you assigned to in the organization?
A: Now, that I cannot remember. I would have to go back to the . . .
Q: Letts see, you were on the insurance committee, I believe, weren't you?
A: I'm not sure of that. See, after twenty years it's kind of difficult to
point out what committees you were on on a particular year, because they've
been up and down.
Q: I see.
A: I think . . . think I was on cities and villages. See, then, too, the
names have changed over the years, too.
Q: Yes, sir, That would be municipalities now, I gueqs.
A: It might have been municipalities then, I don't know. Municipalities in
the House, then. See, I have been in the House and Senate and the structure's
different, so--1 tell you, on those kind of questions, I would really rather
that we go to the books because it's laid out there, the committees.
Q: What I'm trying to do is get a feel for what you felt that first day and
dllring this organization. Was it confusing?
A: No, it's never been confusing to me. I understood what was going on and
what the plans were. No, I never was confused at any time about any of it,
including the first day.
Q: In regard to the committees, were you involved at all in the committees
that you were assigned to serve on?
A: In other words, was I in the day-to-day world on those committees? One,
I know I was. I was involved in the judiciary committee, I was assigned to
the judiciary committee, which is a committee on which only lawyers could
serve at that time. We were concerned wlth the laws, with reference to the

courts. The judiciary committee handled most of the laws of that sort, That
was like throwing a rabbit in a briar patch because T had been 8 lawyer since
1947 and we're talking about 1957. I had been a lawyer ten years, so 1 was
not naive nor uninformed, I guess I was dry behind the ears by then.
Q: Yes, sir.
A: So, I know I served on that committee . . .
Q: Well, what I was driving at--now. for example, on the judiciary committee,
were you interested in being assigned to that committee before the assignment?
A: Yes, as a matter of fact, you had ro send in the names of the committees
that you wanted to serve on and judiciary was one--my first choice, as a
matter of fact,,
Q: I see, yes.
A: 1 have been very fortunate. T always got my choices. Whatever committees
1 asked for, I got them.
Q: Well, let's see, now. Who was making the assignments when you first went
down there?
A: The Democratic leader-now, and ~'m not sure who that was. T think it
was--at that time, I think it was George Dunne. (pause) 1 think so. I got
the committees I wanted.
Q: After organization, what was the first actian that you became involved in?
Was it committee action or floor action?
A: Probably--let me see . . . In these days when you came down the first day,
you would sit down and you would get organized and then you wouldn't come back
until sometime in February when they got the board set up with the names and
the desks with your nameplates and all that, So I came back--1 think there
was, it seems to me, some deficiency appropriations that we had to pass that
first day. Because one--1 know one was fifty or sixty million dollars. T
remember having to vote on something for fifty or - sixty million dollars was
just ,. . a
Q: And you were surprised at the amount, huh?
A: Yes. (chuckles)
Q: So it was about a one-day tour down there and then you came home. What did
yau do then to prepare for going back?
A: Well, 1 started getting together the ideas that T wanted to put into bills
and getting the bills drawn preparatory to being introduced when I got back.
Q: Yes. Did you do your own drawing of the bills?

BLACK DEMOCRATS IN THE 77TH ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY. IN FRONT ROW
( L TO R): SENATORS CHARLES CHEW, JR., KENNETH HALL, CECIL A. PARTEE,
RICHARD H. NEWHOUSE AND FRED J. SMITH. SECOND ROW (L TO R): REPRESENTA-
TIVES LEWIS A. CALDWELL, RICHARD A. CARTER, JAMES A. MCLENDON, ROBERT
L. THOMPSON, CORNEAL A. DAVIS AND JAMES Y. CARTER. BACK ROW: REPRE-
SENTATIVES RAYMOND W. EWELL, JAMES C. TAYLOR, ISAAC R. SIMS, EUGENE M.
BARNES, HAROLD WASHINGTON AND OTIS G. COLLINS.
"I rather carefully avoided a black caucus as such,
particularly since I was the president and leader
of the entire legislature."

READY TO CALL THE SENATE TO ORDER.
"We never started a session
late, not one minute during
the entire time."

CECIL PARTEE AT WORK IN THE SENATE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE.
DURING HIS EARLIER SESSION AS SENATE PRESIDENT PRO
TEMPORE. HE HAD RELINQUISHED THIS OFFICE TO LT. GOVER-
NOR PAUL SIMON.
"I bad a smaller office over on the side."

CECIL PARTEE (L) AND GOVERNOR DANIEL WALKER. PARTEE, AS
SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER DURING THE WALKER ADMINISTRA-
TION, FOUND HIMSELF CAUGHT BETWEEN THE WALKER DEMO-
CRATIC ORGANIZATION AND THE REGULAR DEMOCRATlC ORGANI-
ZAT ION.
"They just always kept me in a tizzy
trying to satisfy and protect both
ends of the party. "

A: No, it was the Legislative Reference Bureau.
Q: So did you send them the data, then, on . . .
A: No, you sat down with them across the desk, discussed the idea that you had
in mind and you would have somebody rough-draft what you wanted to do or,
point-by-point item, what you wanted the bill to include, what you wanted it
to exclude. And then they would put it in written form for introduction.
Q: Let's see, at that time, when you first went down there, when you were
submitting a bill, not a new bill but something which amended a previous bill,
wasn't there something about you amended only in part as opposed to replacing
it with an entire restatement of the law?
A: There are two ways to amend a bill. One, you could offer an amendment in
the cormnittee and if that amendment had acceptability within the committee
and the bill was voted out as amended, it would hit the floor in that form.
Or you could wait until a bill came out of a committee and on second reading,
which is the amendment stage, you could offer an amendment on the floor. And
if that amendment had acceptability on the floor, it would be attached at
that time. And then, when it got the third reading, it would contain, of
course, what you had added or taken out.
Q: Do you remember any amendments that you made in committee action?
A: Oh, gosh. (chuckles) I can't go back that far in terms of specifics. I
can certainly remember that there were many times I thought that maybe
something was couched in language which could be clearer and more forthright
and I would offer an amendment to do that, Or I would offer an amendment to
add something to a bill or to take something out that 1 thought was inappropriate
in that particular bill. Well, there were many times that--specifically,
no, I don't remember.
Q: Was this a formal type action? Or was it generally kind of informal in
the committee action?
A: Formal. Formal, Committee, of course, is less formal than floor action.
But it's formal, you have got to do it in writing, you know; you can't just
talk about it.
Q: Yes. Where did the judiciary committee meet?
A: (pause) Seems to me we met in M-5. See, M-5 no longer exists. That
mezzanine down just off of the first floor down there was a series of little
meeting rooms. See, the capitol has been so configurated and reconfigurated
so many times in twenty years, I hardly remember where various ones met.
Q: How often did a committee like that. meet? Was it on call?
A: It was on call of the chair but they had a schedule. It met at leas? once
a week and sometimes you would have to have additional meetings dependiqg on

the volume of the business to come before that committee. And sometimes pu
would have to have night meetings in order to handle all the bills.
Q: In each individual meeting, was there a general time?
A: You would get a notification that the meeting is going to be at a certain
place at a certain time and the bills to be considered would be listed and they
would give them by number so that, when you got into the meeting, you knew
exactly what bills were to be considered.
4: How soon beforehand would that notification occur?
A: Generally a week before.
Q: So you had time to . . .
A: Sure, unless it was some call meeting or something. You would go in a
meeting say on Tuesday and they would say, "Well, we're going to meet again
Wednesday night and these are the bills that are going to be considered."
You would generally know what was going to be considered.
Q: If a number of bills were coming up, huw did you go about finding a draft
of those bills?
A: Oh, you had a book on your desk with every bill in it, every bill. As
bills were introduced and printed they were put in your bill book. You had
copies of all the bills.
9: This was done by what agency? Do you recall?
A: (pause) It was an outside printing company. Some outside group did the
printing.
Q: I see, yes. Did you have much occasion to use the Legislative Reference
Bureau for anything other than the drafting of the bills?
A: No. No, nothing much more than that.
Q: No research type thing?
A: No, we didn't have that in those days. You did your own research. We
didn't even have a telephone to call home or call your office or anything of
that sort. You would just put some money in the phone booth. We didn't even
have credit cards in that day, You just put some quarters or dimes, whatever
it took, in there, to do it. No, we didn't have any help at all. We had no
interns, we had no staff, you did it yourself.
Q: So really your office was more or less your hotel room?
A: Your head.

Q: Well! (laughter)
A: Yes, didn't have any offices. The leaders had offices in those days, the
speaker would have an offfce. Maybe the assistant majority leader and the
assistant minority leader, and then the minority leader and the majority leader
would each have probably an office, I think they had offices. I don't really
remember that they had offices, to tell you the truth; but I do know the
speaker had one and the president of the Senate.
Q: So if you had any typing to be done, you had to . . .
A: We had a pool.
Q: In the statehouse building itself, huh?
A: Yes.
Q: Did the party headquarters provide any help of any nature of that type?
A: No, not of that type, no.
Q: When these bills were coming up, how often did you--1 believe you call it
11
caucus," where decisions are made within the party? How often did those
occur ?
A: We had caucuses maybe . . . not necessarily any regular basis. We would
have them as need arose, where there was some bill that there might have been
some controversy on and we wanted to make sure everybody understood what it
was and what the party position was on it. They were called more as need
arose rather than at any specific prearranged dates or times.
Q: Where did these usually occur?
A: In whatever meeting room was available. You would go to some committee
hearing room that would accommodate all the guys, big enough to accommodate
everybody.
Q: Were any of them held in the hotel as opposed to the . . .
A: No, no, they were all in the building.
Q: Did you have--I suppose you did--have a number of informal meetings, then,
In the hotel?
A: No, not really, Anything related to the business of the legislature would
normally be in a meeting held in the capitol building.
Q: When you were down there, you spent a coasiderable part of your time in the
capitol building,
A: Yes.

Q: Normally, what time would you get there in the morning?
A: They normally started about tea o'clock, around ten, and you would go
until the business was over for that day, but generally--that's hard to say,
because--well, over a twenty-year pertod, it's been so Eluctuative.
Q: Yes.
A: But they normally start around ten. I think that--you wauld start at the
Senate at nine, nine-thirty, but ten o'clock was pretty much the starting time
over there. Of course, a lot of times we would have committees, maybe,
before that, you know. We would have a committee at eight-thirty or nine, you
see, and come on the floor at ten.
Q: What was the first occasion for you to speak on the floor? Do you remember?
A: No, I do not. No, I don't. (pause) You see, it sounds funny that I
don't remember but: T know why. Having been a lawyer ten years, speaking to
groups, speaking to juries over the years, there's really nothing significant
about starting to speak to a group of people, you know, on the floor. Now,
if I had come from another world, like if I had been a farmer, if I had been
a druggist or something, 1'n sure it would have pr~bably been more memorable
and more indelibilized in my recollection, but I simply don't remember.
Q: From the earlier days, do you remember any particular debates that you got
into on the floor with other individuals on any subject?
A: In my early days, no, I do not. No I really don't.
Q: Did this happen very often?
A: That I would get involved in debate? Oh, yes. I wasn't a guy that was
up every day, but when I got up, I had something to say and they listened.
knew what I was talking about, too.
I
Q: Yes, sir. Now, if you were in Springfield and you needed to research
something for information, where did you go to do your research? The Illinois
State Library?
A: Well, the library or that building just . .
Q: Centennial building?
A: Centennial building, yes. They had very adequate libraries over there, very
adequate. If I wanted to look up a law of another state or something, I may
go into the Legislative Reference Bureau. I wauld on that occasion, because
they had volumes of court decisions and the statutory law from all over the
country. So, if you wanted to make a comparison with some other state or something,
you would go in there, the Legislative Reference Bureau.
Q: Now, the Legislative Council was available at that time, was it not, for

esearch if you needed it?
A: Bill I)ay did help me a lot in later years.
Q: You didn't have occasion to use it?
A: No, not very often.
Q: (pause) So when you were researching, did you normally act on your own or
did you get together with a number of people to develop a position?
A: Pretty much on my own. Just as I would as a practicing lawyer and I wanted
to find out about something, I would just kind of do it myself.
Q: So, and once you felt you had the information you needed, then it was a
matter of getting together with the other individuals that you knew were on
your side qnd come up with a position?
A: You didn't always have time to get together with the individual you knew
was on your side. As a matter of fact, you didn't always know who was on your
side. When the debate started and you got up and made your input, then you
may have somebody from the Republican party over here and somebody from
upstate over there and those coalitions would be formed pretty much instantaneously
rather than sitting down working out our strategies.
Q: Were there any individuals from downstate that you became quite active
with in those early days?
A: Oh, yes, I worked with a lot of those fellows from down there. Clyde
Choate and Paul Powell and, in the early days, a fellow named Butch Katcliffe,
a fellow named Joe Stremlau. Several of them. I got along with all of them.
I would help them with their programs, they would help me with minc.
1 remember helping them considerably with the Southern Illinois University
when they first started moving toward helping to build it and develop it. I
worked very closely with them and so, when we got ready to put in the Illinois
University Circle campus, they were helpful to me, getting that set up.
Q: Who was the leader in the Southern Illinois University development?
A: Paul Powell and Clyde Choate.
Q: Do you remember any specific actions that were taken that you . . .
A: I don't remember any specific actions except I do remember that the University
of Illinois at Champaign, through their representatives, were not very
keen on the building up of this new university down there.
I
Q: And who would that have been? Do you remember any individuals there?
A: No. (pause) You know, whenever you build a new school, the ones tha! are
f

established are not too happy about it because they always think it's going to
take students from them and so forth and so on. I can remember when we put in
Sangamon State, the people who were more upset were, seemed to me, SIU people.
By then, see, because they had developed and they were afraid of competition,
but I always thought it was very unusual that a city like Springfield--a
state capital that didn't have a college, a full college, was just unbelievable.
I couldn't: think of any state capitals in the country without a university
or without a college except Springfield, until they got Sangamon State.
I
Q: Were you active in any other university actions other than Southern Illinois
University and the Chicago Circle and Sangamon State?
A: Well, 1 was very active in the whole junior college program.
Q: Oh?
A: I was persuaded towards support of that junior college program for the
principal reason that as college expenses became greater, it was very obvious
to me that a large number of people would have a very difficult time sending
kids away to college, particularly in large families, the cost was so prohibitive.
We felt the junior college system would be very much needed because
if a kid could stay home and eat and sleep at home the first two years and get
that first two years under his belt, by that time he's a more mature persan
and it's easier then for him to help himself, to go out and start to work on
that last two.
On that same theory, Sangamon State and Governor's State universities will
have that principle, where they start at the junior year and they go through
junior, senior and then into the graduate school. It made it a lot easier for
a lot more people to get an education, you see.
I just always thought about California. They have been so far ahead of us on
the junior college system. You take a fellow like Jackie Robinson, Jackie
Robinson only played two years of college football at UCLA. He played the
first two years at Compton Junior College. California had junior colleges for
many, many years. We were a little late coming to it, but we finally did it.
The community college system, the whole thing that made college education more
accessible to people with limited funds, it's just been a great thing, I think,
for the whole state.
I
Q: Who in the legislature was kind of a prime mover on that junior college . . .
A: I don't know, but I've always been very, very supportive of it, I'll tell
you that.
Now, there are some concepts where I can remember who the prime mover was.
Illinois was very, very behind in the area of how we treat people who have
mental illnesses and I can remember that Sam Shapiro was a main mover in that
one. Sam Shapiro was a member of the House at that time with me. I can
remember trying to help him with that program and Illinois developed into one
of the top states in the mental health field, where we started from "borscht,"

started from nothing.
Q: Did that occur quite early in your legislative career?
A: Well, fairly early, yes, fairly early.
Q: Do you remember a specific bill of any sort that he was . . .
A: No, it was a series of bills. You know what would be helpful to me.
Q: Yes, sir?
A: If your staff would go back and look at my legislative record and pick out
what they consider the major kinds of bills and all that I was involved w ith,
I would like to see that and see what that included.
Q: All right, sir.
A: And it's a very easy thing to do. They just go back to the digests
[Legislative Synopsis and Digest] from that period and they're all alphabetized
and the whole thing in terms of the numbers and you can see which were the
major bills and which ones that T was leader on and so forth,
Q: Are there particular areas that you feel are really important to you?
A: Yes, I would thin--see, the way we've been really delving on the House
picture and--I spent ten years in the Senate and I have passed some rather
significant legislation in the Senate. For example, T passed the first bill
in the United States that mandates the teaching of consumer education in
high schools.
Q: Oh?
A: Some other just outstanding kinds of legislation, some of it in the banking
field and others. Go through the resolutions too. For example, I had the
lead on the resolution far the eighteen year old voting.
Q: Oh?
A: Some very significant kinds of stuff.
Q: All right, sir, W i l l that do it for today, then, sir?
A: Yes, that's fine.
Q: Good
A: The time just . . .

SESSION 5, TAPE 5, SIDE 1
Q: What I've done, under the heading of education and promotion of civil
rights in education, is run through the bills that you were involved with
in the House and then carried on into the Senate. In that folder are some
from the Senate. If 1 may, I'll just call attention to some of the bills
or groupings of bills and see what you recall about those particular ones.
A: Yes.
Q: For example, back in 1957 you were cosponsor on a bill, the primary
sponsor was Simon. I dnn't know, was that Paul Simon in the House?
A: Paul Simon, yes.
Q: In which he submitted a bill which would require superintendents to make
sworn statements of nondiscrimination in schools before they would receive
state aid. And this was approved. He also, in 1961, introduced a bill
where affidavits would be required. Now, I don't know what the difference
between the two bills was but they were both approved. Does this strike a
bell with you?
A: Yes, it does strike a bell with me. That was one approach that was taken
to make certain that those persons most responsible for making certain
that the schools were operated on a nondiscrimination basis would have some
accountability. In asking principals ar superintendents to make that statement,
either by the first method or the second, would in some measure make
certain that that principal would operate the school on a nondiscriminatory
basis. That was probably a sort of an opening round in the whole thing of
making certain that there would be no school discrimination. There had been
and there were many instances where it was provable that there was some
discrimination in our school systems. That was one of the ways used to try
to avoid it and to stop it.
Q: Do you know how Paul Simon came to be the primary sponsor on that first
bill? Now, it was a Representative Marks on the second bill having t~ do
with the affidavits.
A: No, I. don't really know how he came to be the sponsor. It was an idea
that had probably emanated with him or with some person who asked him to put
it in. I don't know. And Representative Marks was a very fine representative
who came along with the second one in 1961; sort of a tightening up
process, I assume.
Q: I see. How did you become involved with these bills?
A: Well, it was a concept that I certainly agreed to and believed in and
it would be normally natural for me to cosponsor a bill of that nature.
Q: Do you recall how you became aware that these bills were in the mill?

A: Well, not specifically as to these particular bills, but normally when
any legislator has a bill that he wants to introduce, he would be inclined
to talk to other legislators who he would feel would bc of the same bent,
and would be of the same mind on that particular subject, and ask them to
co-sponsor it. As a matter of fact, a bill's success in many instances
depends on the number of co-sponsors that it has. There have been bills
where people have sought co-sponsors equal in number to the number of votes
required to pass a bill. One of the things that happens, of course, is
that when a person co-sponsors a bill, he is likely to believe in the subject
matter of that bill and will be supportive of that bill right down the
line. And that insures the passage of the bill on that basis. So normally
when you would introduce a bill you would get as many co-sponsors as you
could because that sort of locks them in to supporting the bill.
Q: I see. Yes, sir. Now, Paul Simon was a very downstater. I wonder how
his interests were developed along this line?
A: Well, sometimes legislators do not introduce bills that relate particularly
to their districts. There are those who have a feeling for what is
best for the state. On that basis he might have introduced it irrespective
of whatever happened. He might have come from a district where there was
no discrimination. He may have come from a district where there were very
few minorities but he would nonetheless feel that this was a proper approach
to what was obviously a very serious question.
Q: I noticed Representative Armstrong took six years to get a bill passed
on redistricting of the school system. He started in 1957, it was tabled,
didn't get to a vote evidently. In 1959, it was voted on and failed and
then tabled again in 1961 and then approved finally by the governor in 1963,
passed through. Do you recall the situation regarding redistricting?
A: I dan't remember the situation as regarding the redistricting. My
clearest recollection is about another bill that he had, unless this is
the same bill that's referred to as redistricting, which was called the
Armstrong Law. I really can't tell you what the components of that bill
were but it did in a measure address the subject of discrimination In
schools. It was, for that period of time certainly, the best kind of bill
that had been proffered to that point. I would have to check it to find out
its exact terms but it was a significant step forward in the eliminati* of
discrimimat ion in schools.
Q: Do you recall what time--was this the time period?
A: I'm not: sure, but it would seem to me i.t would, probably would, it
probably would be 1963, yes.
4: Do you recall that that Armstrong Law took several years for passage?
A: To pass, yes, that's correct.

Q: Be must have . . .
A: There was a lot: of resistance to it to begin with.
Q: What kind of resistance was given to it?
A: Well, people just refused to vote fortit or voted against it.
Q: Do you recall any of the reasons that . . -
A: Well, you know, there are always two kinds of reasons. Announced reasons
and real reasons. I don't remember specifically the reasons. Thexe would
be some who would say, "Well, there is not discrimination. That just
doesn't exist," simply, you know. And there were others who might favor
discrimination but they wouldn't say they favored discrimination, they
would have some other technical kinds of reasons that they might proffer
to avoid the effect of the bill. But it did take several years to get it
passed I remember.
Q: Do you remember any individuals who were most opposed to the Armstrong
Law?
A:) No, I really don't, I really don't. I suspect that Representative
Clabaugh probably was in the vanguard of the opposition at that time.
later years he came around a little bit.
In
Q: Where was he from, sir?
A: Champaign.
Q: Prom Champaign, yes.
A: He was the chairman of the Education Committee in the House den the
Republicans had the House.
Q: I see, yes. Another bill that was introduced by Representative Marks
in 1961 gave superintendents means to investigate discrimination in the
schools. Do you recall . . .
A: I don't recall the specific bill but it would be, certainly a very
necessary bill because one of the questfons that was always raised about the
legislature giving an additional duty to a school or to a school board without
giving them the money to do it with--that was, of course, an objection
that might be proffered by someone who would be opposed to the concept. But
they would say, "Well, you can't get this to our school board because they
don't have the money to do it .I' So his passing a bill which gave them the
money to make the investigations would answer those kinds of complaints
about it.
Q: And in that case, of course, it was approved. They were both approved

for that. About 1968, Chicago started busing in schools. Was there any
reflection in the legislature at that time regarding busing?
A: Well, when you say busing, I'm not sure that we mean busing in the
context that we understand it now, that is to transport persons to comply
with equal protection laws or with the integration of schaols. I'm not
sure that is what is meant. I do remember that we had some difficulties
over the years making certain that the state gave money to Chicago for use
for youngsters who had to be transported from home to school. Downstate
the state had always been supportive of the school bus system, That started,
of course, with youngsters who were in the rural areas being transported
into larger towns to schools. For a period we had a serious fight getting
money from the state for Chicago's transit authority for children who had to
go from one school to another. For example, kids who may want to go to a
trade school or something, or maybe in another part of the city and they
would have to ride the bus, And we felt that they, too, had entitlement to
financial support on the buses. So, if that's what we're talking about
busing in 1968, I think that's probably right.
Q: Well, there seemed to be some issue involved, Ray Page, for example,
came out against busing if it were used for racial integration purposes.
A: Yes, 1 think he did, I think he did. I'm almost sure he did.
Q: Did you know Mr. Page at that time?
i
1
A: Oh, yes, I knew him.
Q: What type person was he?
A: Well, he was a person who believed, I suppose, in what he was about in
that period of time, I think he probably felt that he was adhering to the
philosophy of the time. There was na great outcry in the white community
to eliminate discrimination and I suppose he felt that he was being responsive
to what the majority desired.
Q: Senator Saperstein had two bills introduced in 1971 and 1972 for
equalizing educational opportunity; that is, providing facilities such a
psychological guidance and other aids to the schools. She was primary o
that. Do you recall that couple of bills, both of them . , .
I
A: I don't remember that couple of bills. I do know Senator Saperstein
was a person who had a number of bills over the years that related to
children and ta the handicapped and to persons with psychological problems
and things of that nature. These two specific bills I don't remember.
Q: Yau introduced a bill in 1971 to establish an Illinois equal opportunfty
law fellowship program at the University of Illinois. Do you recall thap
bill?
I
A: Yes, 1 do. There was at the University of Illinois a proven allegatibn

that the University of Illinois law school, particularly, had had an
inordinately small number of black students. In the current year of 1971
the University of Illinois had opened up and had a substantial number of
black students. My .recollection is it was somewhere around twenty. And a
dean of the school came and asked me to put the bill in because they were
seeking something like a hundred thousand dollars to be used for tutorial
purposes. Many of the youngsters who were in the program were having
difficulty keeping up with their class because they had, many of them, had
what might be described as inadequate preparation for law school, although
they were college graduates. The dean felt that they needed extra help and
extra work and that they had to be tutored in some subjects. The money was
for that purpose. My recollection is that the bill failed.
Q: Yes, sir. Do you know why it failed? Was there . , .
A: Yes, I think it failed for one particular reason. During my discussion
with the dean, he pointed out to me that these youngsters, mast of them,
were not working and that they did not have time to hold a job and keep up
with their class and have the tutorial sessions. During the questioping of
him, that question came out, that these men were not working and many of
the senators wha are like myself, self-made people, just found it very
distasteful that we would be subsidizing students who weren't working. You
know, people would say things like, ''Well, I worked every day that I went
to school. I worked and I won't see state money used to send somebody to
school who isn't working," and that kind of thing. I myself worked my way
through but I didn't have the same attitude. But many of them did. I
would think that would be really the principal reason why that bill failed,
because of the self-made people who objected to supporting people in school
who did not work.
Q: Was there any attempt after that to set up this fellowship?
A: No, that's the only time we tried it, I think, because I just thought
it was dead, that it wasn't possible to do it.
Q: Yes. (pause) Senator Fred Smith in 1971, and you plus five other
people, proposed a negro history week, a resolution establishing negro
history week. Do you recall that resolution? And was this the second
year of that, that was one of the questions I had. It said to establish
again negro history week.
A: I don't remember the resolution; I do remember the concept. It was
established along there, I know.
Q: What was Mr. Smith like?
A: Well, he had been in the House a number of years and he had been in the
Senate a number of years when I got to the Senate. A very articulate
gentleman who understood very well the legislative process and who was for
a long period of time the only black member of the Senate during the period

he was there. We joined him in 1967 after reapportionment and there were
then Sour or five of us in the Senate.
Q: I see.
A: But he was a nice fellow.
Q: In regard to grants to non-public schools, Senator Cherry introduced
a bill in 1972, plus yourself and some 20 others, allowing these grants.
you recall that situation?
Do
A: Yes, I do. The bills would benefit principally parochial and Catholic
schools, I had the view that if, for example, there were no parochial or
there were no Catholic schools, the cost of education of the children who
were in those schools would, of course, be borne by the state. And we were
always at a crisis situation in providing sufficient dollars for those
youngsters who were in public schools. If we had to open up public schools
to every single youngster in this state, including those who attended
Cathalic schools, the bill would have been a great deal more money. So
from a practical standpoint, and ecanamic standpoint, I felt it was justified
to give some sort of subsidy or some money for the support of our
parochial and Catholic schools.
The question, of course, was not that simple. The other side of that
question related to the constitutional impact of that question. Whether or
not it was within the framework of constitutional province to do that.
There is, of course, a very clear part of our constitution in terms of
separation of state from religion and there were thase who were opposed on
the basis that this would be dollars from the state going to support a
religion. That, of course, is a question that was litigated very, many
times in our own Supreme Court and in the Supreme Court of the United
States on various approaches to it. There were approaches to subsidizing
the busing, there were approaches to purchasing and furnishing books.
There were several questions that arose and were faced on an individual
basis in that general area.
Q: Yes. How did you get involved with that bill?
A: Well, just as I've said, I thought that if we could, constitutionally,
subsidize a portion of the expenses of the parochial schools, we would
economically be saving a lot of money because it would mean that we would
be spending a lot more if they closed, if all those parochial schools
closed aqd all of those youngsters had to go into the public school system.
Q: How was the idea of the bill started? Were you involved in coming up
with the idea that there ought to be . . .
A: No, I wasn't involved in the idea of coming up with it. I suppose
the idea emanated from the Catholic schools, probably, throughout the state
and particularly those in Chicago. We were importuned by the hierarchy of

the Catholic chufch, and other groups like Lutherans and all that had
schools to ask for this kind of help.
Q: Did Senator Cherry approach you to cosponsor the bill?
A: I'm sure he did. He might have said to me that he had such a bill
and I knew what the concept was and if 1 were in agreement with that concept
then I would sponsor it, which I did.
Q: Other than voting for such a bill, what does cosponsoring involve?
A: Well, if you cosponsor a bill, it means you agree with the concept of
the bill and, in addition to voting for it, you would be expected to speak
for the bill when it came up for debate, to answer questions as they arose.
The sponsor usually answers most of the questions, hut a cosponsor would
be supportive in answering the questions or addressing some of rhe arguments
in opposition. You would be expected, of course, to help it get through
committee and to vote for it on the floor. You would also be expected to
resist amendments which would weaken the impact of the bill.
Q: Do you recall any amendments with this particular bill?
A: I wouldn't remember any specific amendments, no.
Q: Do you remember any of the committee action in regard to this bill?
A: Not in specificity, no.
Q: There was a bill introduced by Senator Graham in 1973 which was to
forbid the phyment of dues in associations when those associations would not
allow member and nonmember schools to participate in athletics or sports.
Do you recall that bill?
A: I don't remember that at all.
Q: It failed. Were there any other areas in education that we haven't
touched on here? Any other specific educational bills that had to do with
the civil rights of the students or of individuals that you feel were
important?
A: (pause) I don't remember any offhand, any others offhand.
Q: Okay. On the Fair Employment Practices Commission, the effort to get
this established went over several years starting in 1953, before you
were involved there, I guess. Evidently Senator Wimbish was very active in
1953 in attempting to get a bill through on this. Did you know Senator
Wimbish ?
A: Knew him very well. He preceded Senator Smith in the Senate. When he
left the Senate, Senator Smith went there. I suppose that Representative
Corneal Davis in the House was a prime sponsor of the bill for many many

years and for many many years it failed. I think finally maybe in 1965,
my recollection is, it passed in the House and also passed in the Senate.
Senator Korshak was there at that time and was one of the prime movers of
its passage.
That was the raw bill that gave us the Fair Fmployment Practices Act. They
had some very definite exclusions. I think originally the bill excluded
all employers with less than LOO employees and over the years you'll find
a large number of bills whittling it down to 75, then to 50, then to 25, and
then to 15. Eventually, a bill which had been offered many many times
passed both the House and the Senate.
I handled a bill in the Senate which gave the Fair Employment Practices
Commission initiatory powers which gave it the right an its own to make a
complaint for disctirninatian. Prior to that: time, the only avenue for making
a discrimination complaint on employment had to come from the individual
who was aggrieved by a situation. The idea for the commission to have the
power was because the commission had the capability of looking at an entire
industry and determining, a great deal more than in individual, whether
there was or was not discrimination within that industry. And then they,
the members of the commission, could initiate a complaint and not have to
rely solely on an individual who had been aggrieved.
That was a very hard fought battle over the years and there was a great deal
of resistance to it. But finally we got it passed. I think T handled it
and I think it got passed maybe as late as, oh, 1973 or somewhere along
there, or maybe 1974, maybe even 1975, I don't know.
Q: The basic bill was 1961, 1 believe. Now,Senator Percy--at that time
he wasnk in politics officially as yet--was credited with making a compromise,
or coming up with a compromise solution to the problem, which
eliminated the business of initiation by the commission as one of the items.
Do you remember Mr. Percy's involvement in that?
A: No, I don't. Corneal Davis could probably remember that. I don't know
anything about that.
Q: I see, yes. The bills, as they were put in down there, were some that
had a tremendous number of cosponsors on it, as many as seventy, eighty
cosponsors.
A: That's right. The bill commenced to pass in the House a long time before
it ever passed the Senate. It might have passed the Bause three or four
sessions before it passed the Senate.
a
Q: Yes, sir. Did you know Martin Lohmann?
A: Lohmann?
Q: Lohmann, from Pekin, a Democrat.

A: No, I don't know him.
Q: We have interviewed him and he was one that was opposed to this because,
as he pointed out--and also I found that Senator Arrington had stated--that
there were real problems in finding sufficient black people that were
educated sufficiently to take some of these jobs. Did you find that to be
true?
A: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There were plenty of black people for
the jobs that they were seeking. No, I don't find that to be true at all.
Q: Well, that seemed to be one of the main oppositions to the bill.
A: Well, you see, if that were sa, just on the basis of logic, if there were
no black people to take the job why would there be any opposition?
Q: Yes, T see. (laughter) Yes, sir, I see.
A: Yes. You're opposed to something because it's a problem to you. If
there are no black people to take the jobs involved, there sha~ldrift'~be any
opposition because there wouldn't be a. problem. So I don't buy that at all.
Q: You don't recall the specific circumstances of the passage of the bill,
then, with the amendments that apparently were made to the bill in order to
make it acceptable to those that were opposed?
A: Yes, well, I don't remember the specific amendments because, you see, I
was in the House at the time and the compromise came in the Senate. But I
could tell you that I would give you a wager that one of the comp.romises
was the large number of businesses that were excluded by the provision that
said that it should only apply to thase coxporations with a hundred or more
employees. That's part of it. They may haw had the initiatory 2lause in
there and they took that out so, when the bill passed in its original form,
there was na initiatory clause giving the commission itself the right to
implement complaints. There might have been some other features in the bill
that gave it strength and teeth that they took out. So that might have been
part of the campromise.
Q: Yes, sir. Then, as soon as that was passed, apparently Mr. Davis and
you and others went right to work to . . .
A: To aMend it up, to amend it to be a stranger bill, yes.
Q: How did you go about keeping together on that? Did you have discussions,
group discussions on this?
A: Well, yes--the right for a person to be able to get a job based on his
own qualifications was so fundamental and basic there was no reason for any
meetings as such. We might have had some strategy meetings in terms of who
or what people we ought to invite to come down to testify for it or something

of that nature. But other than that there was no real need to have a meeting
because this was something that was so desired by the people in our
community that you just, you just know that this is something that people
wanted.
Q: Do you recall any of the hearing action in regard to that? Was there
any . . .
A: Oh, yes, they were always very hotly contested committee hearings on it
and there were people who would come to testify, both pro and con. The
specifics of those I don't remember but they were always long and harrowing
and there was a harangue every time the bill came up because some of the
opposition was just very very bitter and denunciatory of the whole concept.
Q: Do you recall any lobbying that went on in regard to the bill?
A: Well, not in specifics. I know that certain organizations like the
N-double A-C-P [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]
and the Urban League and all would always send representatives to testify
for the need. And industry would probably normally send somebody who would
be there to testify against it as being harassing and burdensome and onorous
on business.
Q: (pause) When the initiative part was finally passed in 1969, Jhrold
Washington led a filibuster in order to get the bill up and to get it
considered. Do you recall that filibuster?
A: No, because that was over in the House. See, I went to the Senate in
1967, so I don't remember the details of it. I know that there was a
filibuster and finally it got passed over there and it got over to the
Senate. Now, I'm not sure that that's the same year we passed it in the
Senate or not. I don't really remember what year we passed it in the
Senate.
9: Yes, it was 1969.
A: Good, because I know that when it was passed in the Senate, I was thq
principal sponsor of it, that I know.
Q: Yes. Ralph Smith was involved in a compromise at that time. Do you,
recall any compromise?
A: Ralph Smith was speaker of the House at that time and what the compromise,
the terms of the compromise was, I don't know. But apparently if there was
a filibuster, the compromise would be to get the bill called under certain
circumstances to stop the filibuster, I would assume.
Q: Yes. One we haven't gotten to yet, since they changed the procedure in
the Eegislative Reference Bureau records, we haven't been able to analyze
as yet the bills in 1975 and 1976 that you were involved with other than

those wbich you were primary spgnsor on. So I don't have any continuation
on that. Do you recall any further action in 1975 and 1976 regarding the
FEPC?
A: I don't remember. I know, in 1975, I had to pass a bill to increase the
salaries of the members af the commission, ,
Q: Both in 1974 and 1975. You had a bill in each year that increased them.
A: Yes.
Q: Why did you feel that they should be increased, str?
A: Well, their loads had become a lot heavier and they spent a great
deal more time with the cormissiqn. I just felt that they were justified in
getting a raise. It wasn't a big raise, like for--1 think it finally went
to $10,000 or something Like that, I don't know what they get now but it
was just to, I think it was from.$5000 to $10,000 or something like that,
The ahairman had been getting $7500 or,~omething like that, so we raised
them all.
)' ,
Q: Yes, sir, Once the bill was passed, was it effective?
A: I think it had its effect, yes. X've not handled many personal cases
under it. I've had a couple of cases under it but I think a ll in all it
had its effect. And more than that, I don't think it was as onerous and
as devastating to industry as they had claimed that it would be prior to
its passage.
Q: Sir, in regard to fair labor standards acts there was an attempt over a
period-of-years in order to get this established and it seems that in all
cases it failed in passage. One part of that was the business of women's
wages being equated with those of men. In 1959, Representative Kaplan and
you and 32 others were involved in a bill which prohibited discrimination
in wages because of sex. Do you recall that bill?
A: No, net except just conceprually. I don't reqember anything about the
bill as it went through the legislature. It was an idea that I agreed
with and that's why I agreed to co-sponsor it, but I just really don't
remember anything else about .it.
Q: What do you remember about Representative Kaplan?
A: He was a very fine representative. He later became a judge in Chicago.
A very conscientious man and a thoroughly and well-prepared man on any
subject he would bring up. ,
Q:,Do you know why he was particularly concerned about the issue of women's
wages?

A: No, I do not.
Q: Why were yau concerned with it?
A: Because I thought it was the best thing for the women in my area and
for the rest of the state.
Q: Did they call this to your attention in your area or your district?
A: I couldn't tell you whether they did or didn't. I could probably tell
you that after the bill was introduced, there were a lot of people in
my area, one in particular, who were very supportive of the concept.
Q: Yes. Which brings up the subject, how did you manage your mail in
the House, let's say in those days?
A: Well, in those days, we did not have any offices and we had nowhere to
work from. We dictated at our desk. We had a pool of stenographers and
you would get your mail and weed it out as to those letters that you felt
obliged to answer. I usually tried to answer all of my mail, every single
person who wrote me got some kind of an answer. If it were something that
I felt obliged to dictate on, to explain either a positive or a negative
position on a bill, I would do so, There were instances where you got
just tons of mail on a subject that would be on postcards or something
saying, "I favor House bill so and so and so and so." In that instance,
so that the person would know that you had received the mail, we had some
cards printed so that all your secretary had to do was to address it in
the name of the person to whom it was to be sent, in which you would say
either that you were opposed to the bill, and you let the people know that,
or you would say you were for it. We had some stock answers that we gave
in those instances. So at least their mail would be answered and it would
be communicated to them first that you had received it and secondly what
your position would be. There might be a bill on which you might say on a
card that you have it under study and you are going to wake a decisidn soon
before you voted on it, but that you would bear in mind the position that
they took at the time you voted.
Q: Did you receive many petitions for action?
A: Very few petitions for action.
Q: In 1965, Mrs. Saperstein and you plus 94 others introduced a bill on the
wages. Do you recall that one?
A: No. It may well have been the same bill that Kaplan had presented
before, I don't know.
Q: Yes, in 1959, 1965, 1967 and 1969, in all those years, it was introduced
and in most cases tabled. It didn't come to a vote, evidently. When a
bill . "

A: I might explain that tabling so that you might know what happened. At
the end of the legislative session, June 30th in those days, there would be
a motion made to table a11 bills which had not been heard. They would
first make a motion to table all bills on second reading, and then they
would make a motion to table all bills on third reading. So, at the end
of June 30th, there would be no bills on the calendar. There would be a
clean slate. In later years, after we got into annual sessions, btlls
were not tabled in that fashion and they remained on the calendar to be
dealt with during the next session of the legislature which would be
within the two years of the current session.
Q: Yes, sir.
A: So, you will find a great deal mare bills tabled in that era than you
will now because all bills that remained as of June 30th, which had not
been heard, were tabled in the old days.
Q: Which meant yau had to introduce them again in order to start.
A: Start all aver, that's correctb
Q: 1 notice in many cases in the Senate it was stated that the bill was
stricken. What did that mean? Stricken from the calendar, I believe was
the term.
A: Well, generally if it were stricken rather than tabled, it would be
because the sponsor, fearing for the defeat of the bill or for some other
reason, would move to strike the bill from the calendar.
Q: I see. (pause) Let's see, the fair labor standards acts. In 1971,
Mrs. Saperstein, again, and you and 27 others in this case, introduced two
bills. One having to do with labor in general and the other having to do
with labor in agriculture. Both of these failed. Do you recall those
particular bills?
A: No, I don't remember those.
Q: (pause) In regard to housing, in 1957, there was a bill introduced by--
the main sponsor was Mikva, and you and some eleven others, in regard to
- discrimination in housing. Do you recall that particular bill?
A: Yes, I do. That was the very first year that Representative Mikva and
I came to the legislature. The concept of fair housing or open housing or
open occupancy, all those terms are the same, was first introduced in the
Illinois legislature. The bill was not a very strong bill, it bas a mild
bill because there was a great deal of resistance to open housing and the
open housing concept. The bill, in a measure, would have provided for
soie . . . it wasn't to farce anybody into any particular place, it would .
seek to place minority families in all areas. It was almost on a . . .
. . in a measure, it would be some sort of selective housing where you would

the word I seek now is . . . quota kind of basis almost, Even that, as
soft as it was and as mild as it was and as weak as it was, was very fiercely
opposed.
Q: Do you recall any of that opposition? Apparently it would have been in
the committee action primarily.
A: Yes, I don't remember specifically year by year. But I could tell you
the full story of the bills. Later, I guess I put in my first one In 1959
or somewhere along there and . . .
Q: In 1961, 1 believe it was.
A: In 1961? Well, we couldn't get it passed in the House when we first
put it in. Eventually, we did get it passed in the House and then for a
long number of years, it passed the House but we couldn't pass it in the
Senate. I think I put it in in 1961, 1963, 1965, and eventually, I think
in 1965, I passed it in the House. And then it went over to the Senate in
1967. By that time I was in the Senate and it always gat killed in the
committee. They sent it to the License and Miscellany Committee for one
reason or the other and it got killed. The Republicans always killed it.
They had the larger number of people in the committees. It always got
killed. Eventually, we got very very close to passage, but we never
actually passed the fair housing law in the state of Illinois.
Same things intervened which made it perhaps unnecessary for passage. One
thing was the Supreme Court of the United States, in an opinion, established
the precedent for open housing. And then there was congressional legislation
which gave people an avenue for enforcing open housing. And more than
that, in the 1970 Constitution, the concept for fair housing was made a
part of the constitution.
Then we absolutely refused then to go ahead with a specific bill because
we thought that any kind of bill that you could pass, if indeed you could,
wauld lessen the impact of the overall statement for fair housing in the
constitution. So then we didn't seek to pass a law itself because a law
would have the effect of circumscribing those situations in which fair
housing was allowed and would not have the strength, vitality, or it would
not be as large in scope as the constitutional provision itself.
SESSION 5, TAPE 5, SIDE 2
Q: You called for the Human Relations Board to take over the management
of this rather than trping to set up a separate commission. Do you
remember the . .
A: Well, yes, there were several different kinds of approaches made. I
think at one time I even gave thought to--I don't know if I ever put it in

the form of a bill--gave thought to trying to combine the functions of the
Human Relations Commission and the fair housing and put them into one
commission, I noted that that had been done rather successfully in the
state of Minnesota. Whether I ever did that by way of a bill, I don't
remember, but I do remember giving it some thought. We may have tried to
amend the Human Relations Act to give it the power to deal with the subject
of fair housing, and I think we did take that approach on some occasions.
Q: Yes. There were several bills which you introduced, rather specific
bills such as making a real estate office a place of public accommodation
subject to . . .
A: That's correct. There was one to make a real estate office a place of
public accommodation. There was another to make banks and savings and
loan associations a place of accomodation. I can remember that was in 1965,
if I recall, because I asked Adlai Stevenson, who was a freshman legislator,
to handle those bills. They were simply different approaches to the same
subject matter of open housing.
For instance, for the reason if you could make certain that a bank or a
savings and loan could not be involved in a discriminatory action as
respects housing, it would have the overall effect of opening up the
housing market to minorities. The same thing with savings and loans and
banks and real estate offices. It was an attempt to put the onus on the
industry that dealt with housing in contradistinction to individual cases.
So that was just simply another approach that we toak. Those bills passed
the House, as I remember, and they got killed in the Senate.
Q: One of the things that developed through the years--in 1966, it came to
a head here in Chicago--was the local municipal ordinance which apparently
did the same thing that you were attempting to do at the state legislature.
Of course, the Chicago ordinance was tested first in the circuit court and
then in the Illinois Supreme Court and was upheld. Do you recall the
circumstances around that ordinance?
A: No, not in detail. I do know that there was a great deal of hue and
cry concerning it because the same forces had opposed it. But Mayor
Richard Daley decided he wanted to do it and it got passed in the city
council on the open housing situation. And I think the implementation of
it was with the human relations commission of the city, I think. Yes.
Q: And this occurred in several other municipalities, apparently throughout
the state.
A: Yes.
Q: Then, in 1968, the legislature validated these types of municipal
ordinances.
A: That's correct. Now, you've got to remember that all of that came after

the 1965 Civil Rights Act at the federal level, when LBJ [Lyndon B.
Johnson] was president. When this 1965 Civil Rights Act was passed that1
changed, of course, a lot of climate. Then it was a federal law and then
cities, of course, sort of abided the decision and went on and put in their
individual laws. Then there was a validation of the ordinances that had
been passed, that's right, at the state level.
I
Q: Yes, sir. The year 1967 seems to have been a big year in the legislature
for consideration of this type of thing in the housing. Do you
recall the circumstances of that year?
A: Well, in 1965 there was a bill passed for the reapportionment of the
Senate. That is when I ran for the Senate--subsequent to that election,
in 1966, and when I went to the Senate in 1967--in the 1967 legislative
session where, incidently, I received the Outstanding Freshman Award.
Q: Yes, sir.
A: There came to the Senate, at the same time I did, several House members
who had served with me in the House. We had a great deal mare legislators
from Chicago based on the reapportionment. Instead of one black senator,
we then had four,
Q: Yes, sir. A bill which you introduced with the housing affairs had to
do with the Weston nuclear plant, or this came up in regard to getting
the bill passed. Do you recall that?
A: Yes, I recall that very well. The federal government was looking for a
place to put a large nuclear plant, a plant that would bring a substantial
amount of money to Illinois if it were located here. They had designated
the site and the government, the federal government that is, had given
the impression that unless we passed an open housing law that plant would
not be located in Illinois and I was using that as an argument for the
passage of an open housing law, so that we could acquire that plant. But
that didn't sell. The opposition was so strong they would rather deprive
themselves of the dollars than to pass the law.
Q: Yes. I notice there was a bill that was passed to provide the--1 think
it was thirty million dollars for the purchase of land for the plant.
A: Yes.
Q: During the discussion, evidently on the floor for this bill, it was
stated that Senator Chew became extremely emotional regarding it, Do you
recall that instance?
A: Don't remember the specific incident but I do remember he did get
emotional on the subject at one or two times. Don't remember the specific
incident, no, I da not.

Q: Do you remember what type of emotionality was involved when he was
speaking?
A: Well . . . spirited and strident debate. Be may have said damn or hell.
He just got really carried away in terms of frustration with the resistance
that was coming to the bill under those circumstances and probably made a
very spirited speech on the subject.
Q: 1 understand that this Licensing and Miscellany Committee was headed by
Frank Ozinga and I understand that you were fairly strident in some comments
about Ozinga and his killing of open housing.
A: Yes, I might have been strident about the entire committee and Ozinga
as chairman, yes, because I never felt that they ever gave me a fair hearing
on it. I thought that when they came in there their minds were made up and
they weren't prepared to listen to what the true facts were.
In those days, it's to be remembered, I couldn't even get any newspapers,
any editorial comments in favor of fair housing. I went once to Peoria
and talked to the editor there who was a man that I considered a very fine
man and asked for an editorial in favor of the concept and he told me that
he didn't think that people who worked for him and his newspaper would do
it on the basis that they didn't believe in the concept. Be said they
didn't believe in the concept and hence they wouldn't write favorable
articles. I said, "Well, I'm not asking that they believe in the concept,
but what I'm asking is, 'Do your peaple have journalistic integrity?"' He
says, "You are doggone right they do. They certainly do have journalistic
integrity." I said, "Then, if they have journalistic integrity, let them
make a survey, since you say they don't need it in Peoria. Let them make a
survey of the city of Peoria and I'll abide those results,," He said, "You
got it."
So the newspaper people in the Peoria Journal-Star made a survey and they
didn't write one editorial in favor of open housing, they wrote twelve
editorials in favor of open housing and put them in a little booklet called
A House Divided. I was just more than gratified that they did it. Although
they may not have believed in it, they had the journalistic integrity to
write what the survey revealed and the survey revealed a real need for open
housing in Peoria which they had initially felt that they didn't need.
Q: What were some of the other things that you did in order to promote
this?
A: Well, I talked to various kinds of people, people from religious groups,
people from the real estate industry. We had some rather large people from
the real estate industry. I mean well-heeled, substantial and progressive
real estate people who would come in to testify against it. The real estate
industry itself, the broker's industry, they were very much opposed to it.
I can remember one day I was discussing it off the floor--at
dinner as a

matter of fact--with the head of the real estate group in the state and he
said, "No, Cecil," and he slammed his hand down on the table and developed
just a torrential nosebleed. They rushed him to the hospital. We were
really arguing the whole thing out at the dinner and next morning when he
woke up in the hospital there were a dozen roses there from me. Although
he was my adversary, I just felt that I wanted to do that. But in the
housing, the real estate people were very much opposed.
Q: Who was that individual?
A: I was trying to think of his name when I was telling you that. I don't
remember at the moment, I just don't remember his name. He was the man
who preceded Bob Cook. Bob Cook is now the head of the real estate group.
He was the man who preceded Bob Cook.
I
Q: There were some other relatively minor bills related to this. Senator
Swanson, again in 1967, introduced a bill to prohibit discrimination against
unwed mothers and their children in housing. Do you recall that bill?
A: I recall it. I think it was kind of tongue-in-cheek because Senator
Swanson was one of the ones who was a member of that famous Ozinga committee
that was killing all the housing bills. So I sort of think that was kind of
tongue-in-cheek. What happened to the bill, you recall?
Q: It failed, sir.
A: Yes. I don't think it would have much chance.
Q: Evidently it was voted on. There were a couple of others like that.
Senator Smith had a bill which stated that no.housing projects under the
housing authority could have discrimination in them in the management or
the construction work and all that sort of thing. Another one was intro-
duced by Senator Newhouse--all
of these, of course, had your participation
in it--which said that real estate broker's licenses could be rescinded
if . . . So there were a number of others that were involved in that.
A: Sure. We took as many approaches to the subject as we could think of.
Q: You mentioned that Swanson was on the Ozinga committee. Now, I notice
that, again in 1967, there were a tremendous number of bills, eighty or
nfnety, in which you cosponsored with Senator Swanson in regard to the
housing authority. Most of them--well, I shouldnlt say most of them, but
about twertty let's say--had to do with substituting a regional housing
authority far the local housing authority and for the land clearance commissions.
Do you recall that situation?
A: Yes, I think I do. Those I felt were reasonable. They had to do with
making sure that there was more housing built. I think that's basically
what it meant:. Yes.

Q: And was this surprising that it came from Swanson, that he was the
primary sponsor?
A: No, he may have been just the sponsor of the bill. It may have came from
the governor's office probably. He was just handling it for the administration
probably.
Q: I see, yes. There were two groups of bills. Specifically there were
eighteen there, only two of those were approved. All the rest were tabled.
The two that were approved recalled the funds from the local authorities
and established a state fund for the payment of expenses in the projects.
Do you recall that?
A: No, I don't remember those offhand,
Q: Another group of sixteen bills, all of them were tabled, was making the
adjustments from in the housing authority.
A: I don't remember those. Now, when I say all these I don't remember, they
just don't have--you know, they're not indelibilized in my recollection. T
would have to go back and look at the bills and see what they said and it
would a11 come back to me.
Q: Yes, sir. We do have a sheet in that folder there on that which
summarizes all of those. Also in 1967, there were three bills, one with
Swanson, one with Simon and one with Fred Smith, all having to do with
introducing the idea of conservation and rehabilitation into the housing
activity. Do you recall any of those bills?
A: No, not with specificity. Conservation of existing housing has been a
concept that was advanced, I suppose as early as that, on the theory that
there was a lot of housing which was old and decrepit but which was very
soundly built and structured, which had the capability of being rehabilitated.
And that's very true today. There are a lot of very sturdy sound
buildings with very thick walls which lend themselves to rehabilitation.
And those buildings, when rehabilitated, are perhaps better housing, in the
context of heat conservation and all those kinds of things, than some of
the stuff they're building now. Some of the stuff they're building now,
with paper-thin walls that you can hear somebody flush their toilet across
the hall or something . . . (laughs) That was, I guess, really the start of
the program of conservation of housing and rehabilitation of housing.
(taping stopped for a telephone call, then resumed)
Q: Sir, I was wondering, in regard to this conservation and rehabilitation,
since you were involved with three bllls in that year, was there anything
in your district which caused you to become involved in that? What was the
situation with rehabilitation of homes?
A: Well, I suppose I had the recognition that, within my district, there
were several structures that had the capability of being refurbished, con-

served or rehabilitated as well as in other areas of the state.
would be my motivation.
And,that
Q: Was there anyone particular in your district that called this to
attention, or called any particular buildings to your attention?
A: No, I don't think so. They wouldn't have had to, I would have just recognized
it on my own.
Q: In 1971, with Senator Cherry, you made a mernorlal to the U. S. Congress
to continue the model cities program. What was your concern with the model
cities program, sir?
A: Well, the Congress had given the impression that they were going to
eliminate it and we felt that it should still obtain. You see, model
cities came into existence when there was a lot of strife and unrest in the
inner-cities across the nation. There were riots and other kinds of things
and we felt that the model cities prpgram would be a very stabilizing
influence on helping people to rehabilitate themselves and to get themselves
started toward the regular job market. We wanted the Congress to know that
it was our view that it would be disasterous if that program went down.
Q: Was the program active in your district?
1
A: Oh, yes, very active in my district.
Q: In what way? What was being done?
A: Well, the model cities program, they hired a large number of people and
the focus was on neighborhoods, and getting people within a particular
neighborhood, through various kinds of federal.programs, to upgrade themselves,
prepare themselves for additional kinds of responsibilities in the
work market. And it also offered employyent to people during the period of
transition between poverty and--moving forward. There were programs that
actually fed people who were in necessitest circumstances. There were
programs that were geared toward freeing women to work, like day care
centers and things of that sort where their children could be kept in the
daytime to free them to work. A11 of those programs, we felt, had a
salutary effect on government in that, if you can get people off of welfare
rolls and off of necessitest circumstances, where they are not earning, into
giving them a viable kind of an existence, it would mean a great deal more
to the state, to the people themselves and to the revenue impact on the
state. It would be upgraded.
Q: And did it continue?
A: The model cities program continued until probably--it was just phased out
in 1978, as a matter of fact. There were some other programs which came
into existence which helped to support the same concept. At the federal
level, many of the programs that were a part of the Democratic administration
previously were eliminated but then the new concept of revenue sharing

came in where the federal government would just give direct grants of
dollars to a city to be used within that city to support social and ather
services.
Q: Yes, sir. One last item this morning, sir. In 1974, you with two
others, with Senator Netsch being the primary sponsor, proposed ta create
a Senate committee on housing to study the state pollcy concerning housing.
Do you recall that actian or proposal?
A: If I saw the bill itself it would probably jar my memory. I really
don't know what the motivation for that was at this moment. And I can't
tell you specifically.
Q: You don't remember if the committee was formed?
A: No,
Q: Okay. Well, sir, if that's all right, then.
A: All righty.
Q: I sure appreciate your time, sir,
A: Oh, you're mare than welcome. I enjoy this. It helps me to remember
a lot of my personal history.
Q: Good.