American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Henry (Hank) Thomas, 1 of 4

Uh They just think that that those were just slow inconveniences uh to us that you know should have happened, but [host]: let me let me start over, and and uh the other thing I should say is uh- can we stop [Henry]: mhmm ok [host]: the first thing I wanted to talk to you about is um you know uh what was what was interstate bus travel like? Back there in 1960-61 what was it like as-as a black person to to travel interstate. Well depending, always um you got on the bus and the law required or the custom required at that particular time

that blacks went immediately to the back of the bus and perhaps about 4 or 5 uh seats uh couple of rows of seats were reserved for blacks. And if they fill those up and then they can move gradually toward the front but in many instances if the 4 or 5 seats in the back were completely occupied than the other black passengers who got on just simply has to stand up. And uh obviously there were instances were uh people were standing up for 2 and 3 hours, uh you know depending upon the distance to uh, their destination and uh if you had so many on that that you then started to get past the middle of the bus even though you were standing up then you just squeezed but they're in the back and I didn't know there was anything such as a limit for the number of people who could be on the bus. But those were just the indignities that blacks suffer. And you

always heard stories and especially say if you're down in Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana; bus drivers who course took upon themselves and these are people who we're not paid a great deal of money so their white skin was the only thing they had to flaunt their superiority. And being able to be very rude and crude and just verbally abused black people was a rite of passage for many white males. As a matter of fact that was they considered that they're right you at one point can be talkin very civilly and in a courteous manner to a white passenger. Smiling and doing all that and that black passenger would get on and that person uh- personality would immediately change for no apparent reason. Uh a name calling was um, was standard so if you could get on a bus in the south maybe in Mississippi or Louisiana and not be called a racial name, not be called

boy or girl you could consider yourself lucky. So everyday humiliations was um par for course if you will. It was a part of the ethos of white America America and, a part of their culture. [host]: Um How? I just want to get in-in for a quick second. But how-how that- how that kinda makes you feel? you know you grew up down there. How does- how does that make you feel? [Henry]: One of the things I have later learned and can appreciate. Uh The fact that I grew up in Florida and in this case the northern portion of Florida and I guess we can call that a more moderate in terms of the racial attitudes. Were it not for that I- there's a a good possibility that I would have been murdered. Because I never accepted uh that position. And I was always as a

kid testing the limit. Ah my mother was always afraid for me to go in to downtown or- I lived part of my life in uh Georgia and was always afraid for me to go around town because just saying yes sir and no sir to white people was not something that I did. I did it for adults and this type of thing but i always had questions about it. And I had the kind of questions that uh,I've read from other folks writing, that uh I asked the kind of questions that made black adults tremble uh. Because I just did not act the way I was supposed to act. And there were a number of cases that uh, uh in my- even before I became a teenager that uh I was threatened by white people and the news got back to my mother and, um, I didn't understand it at the time, but she was deathly afraid for me. [Host]: You remember how you heard about the Freedom Riders, and- and- and-, uh, why you joined?

In uh, after February of 1961 the 4 students sat in uh, in Greensboro that was kinda like the shot heard around the south. I think um many college campuses black college campuses i'm pretty sure you had a few rebels who were just did not abide by society's rules and were testing the limits and th-there were discussions about this humiliation that we were enduring and plus we all knew about the success of the Montgomery bus boycotts and subsequent successes in other southern cities so the discussion was we ought do something we ought to do something and when the uh four freshmen sat in at Greensboro no one needed to say anything else. Uh I think the first group of kids were at uh Fisk in Tennessee state and then just like dominoes

if you will or like a wildfire uh it started to spread We were at Howard university and in the city of Washington dc there was a public accommodations law. But across the border to the north was a Maryland and to the south was Virginia. So i don't know how these students at American university heard about it but we had started to meet at Howard's campus and then one day when we were having our uh informal meeting uh kids from American university white kids from American university showed up and this was my first time ever having any kind of contact like that with whites. Usually if you're in the south it's always the uh dominant subordinate type of contact so when I saw these kids and they were coming out to work with us I was baffled by it needless to say I appreciated it. And so we were to go

into Maryland one weekend Virginia the next mo-weekend and my first time I was ever arrested was in Hyattsville, Maryland and so that's how we w-we were involved and then of course the next year in '61 when we received information about corps was looking for volunteers uh to go on the freedom ride with the idea of the um protesting and testing the laws regarding interstate t-....ok [host]: Can we stop? I just want you to start, you know when you know, you heard about the freedom riders uhhmm we got a memo i guess for a letter from core stating that they were looking for volunteers to um tests southern state's compliance with the um supreme court decision. And um so i was one of those volunteers. [host]: Why? [Henry]: it was an extension of what we were already doing I

didn't have to take a great deal of time thinking about it um it was a chance to do something once again to help bring down the- break the barriers with reference to segregation, American apartheid. So philosophically I didn't have to have a discussion with myself I was ready to go [host]: Um but weren't you scared? Were you too young to be scared or what did you think? ah i wasn't scared probably i was too young to be scared. Uh i just saw this as another opportunity to ah to do something and bring about the change that we were old looking at and so well and of course obviously I had endured the humiliations of segregated um bus riding like everyone else and so it was like yes it's time we did something so here i am. [host]: Uh we were joking before um about uh you know I was telling you how when I went- was kinda uh vietnam protester but it was the

girls it was the community the girls what- talk about that a little bit. How- how was it you know... you know how'd that help, help you to do it? I've always considered myself a saint ok so I can't say that my uh inspiration for going was looking at the uh wonderful ?fair uh? sex and flesh but nevertheless (laughs) well obviously uh once we had been on the picket line and we had sat in and we came back to the campus we were heros and uh to say that you had been arrested the young ladies just embraced you and they saw you as a hero and i thought hmm there are some side benefits to this (laughs) however on the freedom ride there were uh there were no uh

women on the freedom ride because i guess the people involved knew that that was gonna be danger but to walk the picket line with the young lady or to uh uh be treated as a hero I liked that. [Henry]: So (laughs) [host]: We all do. Talk a little about uh, the uh training for the uh. Freedom ride. So so so you join say I'm ready to go were you trained? yeah we'd obviously uh since we were involved in sit ins and we were walking the picket line we understood and we had to constantly be reminded of the uh the idea that this is -we are doing non violent action. Now one of the things I want people to understand the American people and our whole society is not a non violent society. We've never advocated it uh so the idea of

participating in non violent action and i think they're people like dr king, john lewis, who sincerely embraced it as a philosophy of life. Most of us didn't. I didn't either however I also knew that we had to do it this way because we needed the sympathy of good hearted white people who were on the fence so to speak. And we needed the participation of whites. It was easier for them to participate this is not to marginalize their concern for justice but it was easier for them to participate if we are victims so to speak. And when you see a black person be and set upon by four five whites and this person isn't fighting back it is easier to sympathize with that black person. Now i

know this is kinda contrary to what most people have been portraying this Our struggle and the way we did it but that was how i understood and why we had to be non violent. The other practical side of it is if you're walking on the picket line and a white person comes up and slaps you and you slap them back the police officers gonna arrest you. Well he's gonna arrest you anyway but only will he arrest you now he's gonna charge you with assault and there's a very good possibility he will kill you. So because in the south it is a-uh it is tantamount to capital punishment or a capital crime for a black person to hit a white person no matter what the circumstances are. So if we had fought back many of us would have been killed and we would have been killed by the police. And uh they, the small reservoir of sympathy that we would've had for whites standing on the

sideline would have vanished that's my take on it. [host]: Um great. I wanna t-tell me again um because I just wanna be clear about this you didn't didn't you personally Hank Thomas didn't believe in non violence... Tell me, tell me, yup, tell me. [Henry]: No.. and I still dont well it's just not within and this is an inadequate word but not within my particular nature. [host]: Ok i wanna go- Im sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. I want you to- I-I wanna talk about that event you know this is- how were you back then?.. This is a 19 year old Hank Thomas OK. [Henry]: 19..mmhm [host]: talk about yourself then and non violence. [Henry]: Did not believe in nonviolence. I believed in obviously protecting myself. Uh you know I had my share of uh school yard yard fist fights and this type of thing. And so the idea is uh you must must protect yourself at all times. And yes uh we had had had probably one or two scrapes with white youngsters at that particular

time. And so you just didn't if- you didn't take any stuff from people and so to be now i'm told that there is a possibility if i'm sitting on a lunch counter somebody's gonna slap me or spit on me or throw water on me or yank me off that stool and i'm not to do anything about it is um just not- against my human nature. So i had to understand why i had to uh uh certainly not give into that impulse to defend myself.... No [host]: Have you heard of Gandi before this? [Henry]: No.. [host]: Uh, I need, th-thats why I need you to give me a full answer. My question is not gonna be there. [Henry]: Yeah [host]: So if you just say no th- you know what I mean we have no understanding of what what you're saying no to [Henry]: OK, After we got involved in the civil rights movement I learned about Ghandi. I learned about him from what uh, the words of dr king and then I began to read about Ghandi. Uh, not as thorough

as I have uh learned about him since that time and uh you know I just kind of took a deep breath and said I take my hat off to the Indians before you know because many many many of them were killed and uh massacred by the British and so once again. Now I had to (laughs) I had some self protective uh measures that I took. Uh even though I was 19 was a football player and uh I was decent football player so I'm six foot four and I'm over two hundred pounds i had no intentions of be a martyr. I had no intentions of getting beat up on the picket line or at a lunch counter. So how did I protect myself? I could get the meanest look on my face. And when I'm walking a picket line and you've got a white person out there maybe we're calling uh out racial names and I get a breast of them and I would look them directly in the eye

the eye. And there is nothing about my demeanor would say to him this is a non violent guy. There's a good possibility this is a crazy guy so i'll pass him by. I did that deliberately uh so i didn't have to (laughs) uh be tested as much. Now you can call it cheating but no I was not determined to be a martyr and i was not planning to give my life ah for the cause. I was gonna fight in the cause but uh [Henry]: I had no intentions of getting killed. [host]: Um (coughs) you had extensive training um before you went um in non violence and you know, you had an interesting line I think you talked a little bit about all the talks and stuff like that. Talk about the training and how much they talked about stuff. We had to whites who would act as hecklers

and uh this is especially true before we went on the freedom rides and of course they'd stand behind yell, call you all kinds of names. And lets just say push you uh to the floor. And so when you fell down there is things that you can do a position that you can assume that can somewhat protect your head and and your face and eyes and things of this nature. So when you fall down you kind of fall in the fetal position and uh that can give you a certain measure of protection. And so we had that kind of training but like I said as large as uh i was and even back then uh I always appreciate the fact that we had small people on the picket line with me. They were gonna get it before i did. And then of course- so yes you had that kind of training because when you're called uh a racial name and you obviously are not accustomed to that and you know that that's gonna shock you a little bit. And where I grew up if you were called the N word

you retaliated you know accept if it was a police officer. But just say a white man would call you the n word uh no you didn't take that. Now once again I was, I grew up in northern Florida uh and my actions in norther Florida may have gotten me killed had a grown up in Alabama but that's uh, so we had to get used to you know that being called that and they'd smoke in your face and and give you the impression they're standing behind you that they're gonna do something untoward towards you you so you had to psychologically get accustomed to that. [host]: So the training was was very similar to the um, I seen films of the training that Jim Lawson was doing in Tennessee. Was it Very much similar to that. I think that we all kinda used the model uh that Jim Lawson used because Jim Lawson is a firm believer and philosophical believer in the-of the tactic and the strategy and power of non violence

[host]: Uh one of the things that you all did that I found kinda fascinating was you all dressed so nice. You know everybody- the women had on dresses the men had on suits and ties. Why? [Henry]: That was all apart of the psychology as well and by that I mean they authorities we're going to look for anything possible to number 1 arrest you for or the newspaper writers at that time were hostile toward us we're going to look for things that they can write about to marginalize you and somewhat denigrate you. So here are college students the future leaders of the country the leaders of the community who or not only sitting there peacefully but everything about them their demeanor suggest middle-class, peaceful

aspirations and what better way than to have the young men in coats and ties and the young ladies uh dressed appropriately businesslike. And there we were as students we took our books with this because chances are you weren't going to get served anyway until you had a 2 or 3 hour stent of sitting there. there. And the image was to be projected throughout the world here are well dressed mannerly orderly black folks just asking for the same thing other Americans are asking for and the contrast between us and the mob was these white toughs uh who spoke uh poor english and everything about them seem to be seem to say these are uneducated folks and here we are the image of the meritocracy that America talks about

and we're the ones that are being refused service and these white toughs are the ones that are attacking us. So we wanted that contrast to be there and uh to a certain extent it worked. [host]: Can we cut for a sec.. of what the freedom rides were? [different speaker]: hold on a sec [different speaker]: I can see some motion- movement. Ok thats fine [host]: Not what you wanted to happen but what [host]: what you know hope wh-... yeah what were you gonna do? [henry]: What was our intended purpose? Yeah End the daily humiliation That African Americans suffered. [host]: No I guess what I'm asking because we're gonna let you get to that. Cause I want- I just want to know the nuts and bolts you know we're gonna go down, um you know women and white people and black people sit together in a bus, sit together then see what happens something like that. [Henry]: Ok.. yeah [host]: You know what I mean? So they kinda know [Henry]: I got you

[host]: nuts and bolts of... Please but you know could you cry? [Henry]: Well you've said it. (laughs) I'll just repeat what you said. [Henry]: (laughs) don't cry for me [host]: cry for me [Henry]: Hank Thomas (laughs) ok (laughs in background) We're gonna ride integrated through the South and to test uh and demolish the old Jim crow laws which says blacks and whites can't sit together. Blacks can't sit in the front of the bus. Blacks can't use quote unquote white only restrooms and that's what we were gonna to do we're gonna bust up that particular myth and uh gonna shatter uh of those particular local laws. We were gonna integrate interstate transportation [host]: What did you think was gonna happen? You personally Hank Thomas 19 years old what did you think was gonna happen? I thought white folks were pull a fast one on us given given all the attention that we had. They were going to integrate the facilities during the time that we were there and as soon as we left they're gonna go back to

do and business as usual and in a few cities that did happen. Uh I had no idea and never thought that uh we'd encountered the kind of resistance and violence that we did. But uh that particular myth that I had or the thought that I had was quickly shattered when we hit uh rock hill south Carolina and that's what we encountered the first violence [host]: Talk about North Carolina and [inaudible] because you stop in DC so you have Virginia, North Carolina right? well one bus. We-we were riding 2 buses one Trailways and one Greyhound there were 2 bus companies at that time uh we were I think if i'm not mistaken as we entered rock hill South Carolina I was on a Trailways bus. And the greyhound bus had gone on into I think, uh North Carolina and um all I'm sorry, no they were they were in North Carolina we stopped of

course in South Carolina. And that's you know that's where we encountered the first first violence and um that was shocking. [host]: What happened? John Lewis got off the bus and he was immediately set upon by 4 or 5 white guys knocked to the ground. I had never seen anything like that before. As prearrange if anything had happened to John and his uh white a partner I was to get off and go into the uh bus terminal to test the facilities as we would call them to see if i could use the white waiting and the white restroom. Once again I had no intentions of getting beat up so I can be pretty theatrical at times. So slowly got up from my seat I was midways the bus walked up to the front and of course the rest of the guys was waiting for the next guy to off. I got to the front of the bus the

bus door open and I stood at the top of the step and I just stood there for about probably no more than 2 or 3 seconds and I looked at the 3 or 4 guys there. And I deliberately walk down one step paused and looked at em again. And by the time I got to the bottom of the step I looked at them and they let me through and when they did that I said (exhales) Thank goodness (laughs). And I went inside the white uh restroom and that's where the police arrested me. [host]: You said you had never seen anything like it before. Um bob are you changing the angle there [Bob]: Yes you said had never seen anything like it before. What do you mean? I'd never seen anyone beaten up before and I certainly had never seen a white person beating up on a black person. You see in my community if that had happened and you're a black person and you're

walking alone and you see 2, 3 white people beating up on a black you're duty bound to help that person. And you know that's that's the way I was brought up so to see John Lewis get set upon liked it that that was, that was shocking to me even though I knew and we had practiced that this kind of thing would happen but still. When i saw it happened um it was shocking and I was also determined its not going to happen to me but the reason I let out the uh sigh of relief was ah I don't know how I would of reacted had these guys uh jumped on me. [host]: what happens if you tilt up a bit more. [bob]: i think its better if you see more chin [bob]: like this you mean? When I [inaudible] And the tilt up ok

[bob]: ok we have 2 minuets left on this tape [host]: ok. what did John Lewis do? [Henry]: John reacted or like he was trained to do and then John truly believed uh in in non violence and so I wasn't surprised at that.