Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Q: I think in 1900 if I recall correctly.
A: Oh was he? Oh well, he'd bc just eight years older than me. I always supported the
FEPC [Fair Employment Practices Commission].
Q: Oh you did?
A: Yes. I got a lot of hell for that.
Q: Oh? From whom?
A: Well my constituents, none the less. Not a lot of hell. (pause) Well as I mentioned
that there were a number of Negroes in my aldermanic district and that word nigger was
not permitted at our table. It was never uttered in our house as I can remember. My dad,
in his younger years, hired a lot of them at the glassworks, as a day foreman at the
automatics. And later in the closing of his career he worked with a lot of them at the Federal
Land. I don't know why, I guess it's from parental bringing up, I had no ethnic problems.
I still don't have. I didn't have then.
In mentioning that, I became quite a friend of Senator Hall's and he was reelected last Tuesday
down in East St. Louis. His opponent was a very fine Caucasian lady by the name of
Sissy Steele. She has been in leadership in the house, and she ran against Kenny, and there
was, oh, there was some racial overturns, but Tuesday night about ten o'elock 1 called Hall
at his headquarters. I see him a lot, talk to him, hell, I've talked to him a, half a dozen
times since the election. He's been out to the house, he and Mrs. Hall, and 1'11 go down
to his Christmas party. Rut I called - he said, "I'm doing fine," he said, "my East St. Louis
returns are just in." Now listen to this - he heat Mrs. Steele 11,000 to 500 in East St.
Louis.
Q: Oh is that right? My goodness. (laughter)
A: The Globe Democrat, it mentions that. The next day in the (;obg it just mentioned that
some of the precincts were as high as 200 to one.
Q: Gee whiz. Well! (laughter)
A: And he was - well he's a real fine man. And she is. And I'm sure that - oh she
called him the next day, and naturally she was disappointed but she's one of thr grand
ladies. And he's one of the grand Negro members of the senate. Of course everybody don't
like him. He's got some opponents that - everybody don't like everybody.
But recalling about breaking the colored line, I may have mentioned this before, but Hall
used to come up to eat. He hasn't come up to Alton since I've been out of it, but he used
to come to Alton and have lunch with me and we'd always eat down at the Stratford
Hotel. And I - I suppose when you eat there at noon that the Negro patrons of the hotel
arc not too many, but Mrs. Gaylord who owns the hotel, she broke the colorcd linc, and
I told Kenny - we were eating there one day - and 1 says, "See that lady thcrc, Kenneth,"
I says, "Senator." I called him senator. He likes that word senator.
Q: Well.
A: I says, "She's the lady who broke the colored line in this hotel." And you could just
see him beam. And well, stories that he told mc about his boyhood, and his wifc's in
particular. His wife's father came up from Mississippi to go to work in the packing plant
before the race riots. They had race riots in East St. Louis I think hack right after' the
World War 1, after the original World War I. And after he saved sonic money, why, he
sent a money order home for Kenny's mother-in-law to hring her two little girls up. I nlct