American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Ken Grove, 1 of 2

trying to kill you freeman wilson well i was a newspaper boy with the alabama journal which is no longer publish that we carry the evening paper and had stories had been in the paper for days and of course on the news at night and the community was just all abortion know world where these outside agitators coming to montgomery to support life was kind of a by word of the day a name many many conversations so there was an acute awareness that something was coming and going maybe a little bit of disbelief that anybody would have the audacity to carry that through so i was very much of interesting names will do you remember that day will work for you are feeling now well there was tension i mean it was so that you know people here especially in the white community and my peers i was a teenager at the time you know you don't

really see it as a struggle of people trying to establish her rights you know and that sort of thing it was seen more as somebody coming to take our lifestyle away from us was kind of the moon become one perspective so there was a lot of anxiety about it in a lot of concern and the conversation i recall you know a question of rights are constitutional or anything like that was it was more disruption of orwell standing system that we like very well thank you well this is julia well it was everything was segregated you know the race is never met except in a very constrained conditions it was common to have domestic help of another race and my siblings and i were raised by black women basically during the day my mother worked and that sort of thing that was ok

and those relationships were good and don't seem to occur in a world apart a black people did your work being carried out groceries a grocery stores and they were always kind of on the friendships and that's where this community came together was on the fringe when he came downtown to dexter avenue you know the black business district was overall moulton and they're going to race is almost never mixed even in their views of downtown was very very separate well i'm feeling well they were generally viewed to be happy you know the common attitude was well you know they're not complaining it's our folks who spoke from outside coming into canada ryle things up and that was the reaction to it was probably a widely held view that we've worked things out and you know separate but equal work for us and and

so that there was just no almost no as to my friends and colleagues you know no empathy or are no ability to put themselves in someone else's position try to imagine what things would be like again because the interactions were limited i never had a black fellow student an entire time i was in montana public schools and it was really from first grade through high school the local four on for those kind of this is the story you know just waking hours to write wasn't that was it any thought to be a system where obviously you know we'll see so so i know what you mean

i think different people have doubts they were certainly wishing that everybody was happy and in the change was not going to come a minute i think there was a lot of you know we got our way of life you know we'll be in charge of it in under states' rights sort of thing and not a lot locally we didn't have a lot of local leadership project was surprising when a white people would say anything about again and generally it was it was ignored just a little unique perspective my father no other word from here my father was from new york in a month from the state of utah they met during world war two and the army air corps and it was later recruited by the air force to be at maxwell air force base so we can to soften a different perspective because we were aware that you know on base life was a lot different you know black people were involved and responsible jobs at

that time and it was just an entirely different world contrast completely between life on maxwell air force base in her life in the community and my father was very careful to instruct us on the right way to look at life and how to are employers with other people and you remember once asking him how he dealt with air force generals all time a simple song where all men we put our pants on only guitar and he went on further to say and that's the there's no difference between the research and we'll put our pants only get a tan and in that was kind of the perspective that that we grow up with so far i felt at times threatened by my peers and friends when they would get off on the races diatribes they had been taught and the nonsensical things they would say and unfortunately our very own very early on it was better just to keep my opinions

to myself and not to try to engage in conversation and that was true when i was a younger teenager because we got or towards high school there were a few people who began to think about things not being right there was enough experience or have been enough things in the names of course we were getting older and more aware of the world so there were a few people who could have a reasonable discussion about issues of race and civil rights and that sort of thing so it wasn't completely absent from montgomery alabama there's always been some here but from the popular culture that was all really just strictly segregated and very traditional one of the things that you know siemens working within reading your friends and those can crack and it was a big deal but in nineteen sixty one but when things at that wanted to do was to make

people see and i think it was very successful in doing that were most successful human change events that has occurred and maybe the history of the world because the attitudes are so hardened rigid against him and he just couldn't convince some people that that we were all the same kind of people in any respect than in and that the beliefs that i heard expressed i can't even her team anymore we don't use that kind of wine which anymore and say those kinds of things but you know strings of stereotypes and epithets and in all kinds of dire effects yet and they also while he would need a person who's very friendly to people of the other race and very tidal still maintaining that rigid segregation some point we can be friends at work perhaps and we can interact there were always examples of great generosity and people helping out the people who were blithely new that sort of

thing so it wasn't completely separated in all respects but for the most part yes it was iowa's here again you're welcome you have to do but i love the work because these buildings were so entrenched yes and what now isn't sure is kind of exchange so what was accomplished was we all became aware of the rights that we all share and enjoy simple as that no one has any more rights in the world to grow to other people and then and that was you know all the perspective of a lot of white people was you know we're going to take my

lifestyle or my rights away from me that whole thing changed because you begin to realize well you know this applies to also what's good law for one is good law for everyone if you don't want it to try to start something with civil rights movement a couple of these changes to the world and what well the civil rights movement accomplished one of the biggest most dramatic and fastest changes and the history of the world in my view and there have been many conflicts that have lasted longer you know even centuries but in a very few short years they change the system that was entirely unworkable unmanageable established for everyone what are civil rights are and not just the rice white people but the rights of black people and all people every we're in it really set a standard the world can look to you know we enter into self and

we in this country have established a human rights document through actions into laws that is the standard for the entire world you know and you talk about you know well what people would say you know in terms of what did they say which are juggling <unk> one occasion we were hungry in the backwoods of world make a nerve montgomery county somewhere and we got lost there were four of us in a pickup truck and we saw black men walking down the road decided we'd ask him for directions about where to go and i was on the passenger side so i rolled down the window and not really

taking acid certainly tell us how to get from where we are to where we want to go and nobody said anything in and the polls which way to go i rolled up the window and turned around here are three guys were shotguns just as big as mine and i said don't you ever censor to remember him and those were the kinds of things that were just very intimidating situations you know were unnerving and it was just really difficult to get past at least for me this is the vision that says that that was your reaction to put on that you know what what would you do well obviously deprived of any meaningful contact with i was deprived of any meaningful contact with people my own age cohort who are the other rights of the people who i met were yard when a people in grocery stores are almost never any one of my own age cohort and what we

learned after the civil rights movement we were deprived of a lot of really meaningful and unique human relationships just normal everyday day to day interactions experience of all people that we now enjoy quite freely and you know my own staff to the city of montgomery you know were just about fifty fifty and we have a meaningful interactions every day we have friendships families and by teaching each other over for dinner and that never happened before in that way you could have a domestic al pitcher house who would fix meals and it even serve you and that would be the limit of which you never got to know anybody personally there were never any never any opportunity for friendship i think we will that

sale few writers soft so sure that was of feel you well failure of modern rulers all be assertive john you know my peers who were talking about it was it was an everyday topic some speculation that they'd never even be able to make it this far conversations we learned they were in the room almost an hour certainly when they would arrive there was a lot of attention i was working at the newspaper we used to have our rate meetings at the newspaper building on occasion and on most than one of those occasions on that particular day and i remember hearing that the freedom riders were here in the mom had assembled and some people tried to get up to the roof of the building to see if they can see at the stations

just a couple blocks from where the advertiser rebuilding was at the time and a couple of us went out the front door started walking maybe down washington avenue and in all likelihood and get down maybe a block a block a half and so people are running in the direction of the bus station which we couldn't see directly we're looking down there washington avenue which was warm weather and so people with sticks and bats and very angry cat and susan and lots of shelling you could tell they were going somewhere for money and purpose and scare the heck out of me a turnaround went back the other way about as fast as i could go realizing that was not a place a wannabe and will be happening well it's that it's hard to describe a scam like the first time you become aware that people can be violent each

other really really hit me hard these people really intent on beating the heck out of somebody else and they may not even know but you know just the ability of one human being to express that much is a colossal another just was shocking to me i think that might've been the first time i realized whoa mean and evil people can beat towards one side of human nature of human capacity that had not fully realized you know even reading stories of violence in the newspaper there's nothing like the first time you really see it for yourself