American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Glenda Gaither Davis, 1 of 2

[test language] Alright, ok [laughter][inaudible voices][Interviewer]:OK, Glenda, we were talking about growing up in the South. Talk about how it was for you as a young black girl growing up in the South. What do you remember? [Glenda]: I remember being segregated. I mean you kinda were not always taught that it was out there but it was kind of an understood thing, that there were you know things for whites and things for blacks which I found to be very humiliating and, um, I grew up in a a textile town, very small and they're weren't many whites who were any better off than the blacks, actually

but still there was that division just on the basis of one being black and one being white. [Interviewer]: If you had to remember kind of the- the- the- you know- You're talking to your 12-year-old nephew or something and you're trying to explain ?segrega-? you're trying to give him one instance that- that- that- you know, um, is the personification of- of- of- of What it was like, what w- would you talk about?] Um, always having to do back door kinds of things. If you were going to a movie, either you were not allowed to go or you had to be put in a- a um- certain area isolated from other people. Um, there was a large department store in the downtown area of my hometown. They had a water fountain and, you know, as little children when you go shopping with your parents on Saturday, you know, you would like to have some water, but the water fountain was for whites only. And then there are, not far from me, on the road, um,

leading to Columbia, South Carolina there was a service station that had a sign in the window, that always used bother us, it said no da- no niggers and dogs allowed and even as small children you know you try to figure out what was that really about. But there was always the understanding that you were isolated and not permitted to do certain things because you were black.[Interviewer in background very difficult to hear] Yeah I think hope was very much what we moved on with the civil rights era altogether and the things that we were able to do and the things that we did in a fearless kind of way because we knew that we had taken a stand and that they, it was going to better. There was something better out there for us and somehow we were going to make it. And even though we came from many different places and we had many different cultures and

many different home environments or whatever, in some ways we were very much unified because we had a common cause and we were all moving in that direction and we did believe in what we were doing. [Interviewer-unintelligible] I'm trying, ok. [Interviewer-unintelligible] [Interviewer]-It's just me and you, [um,"Booby"? name not clear,] was saying during the break it's amazing talking to you and some of the other people of your generationg to [Interviewer]-How or why did you decide [Interviewer]to do something, you know why [Interviewer] Why then? [Response]: Well I went to school at Claflin University in Orangeburg South Carolina and we had a very active NAACP branch and I had grown up at home with having a very active and NAACP branch,even in my small hometown.

And my parents were, um, they were, they were very much attuned to racial issues and so when I went to college I became affiliated with an NAACP group and then the protests, the nonviolent protests began and we had several of those in the Orangeburg area, all of which I participated in. I was arrested you know, several times, and matter of fact we were put in the stockade at the capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina. So when the Freedom Ride effort came through it was just another something to get involved in for the same thing. So it wasn't like a real difficult decision to make. I was already in the thick of it and so I just went with the next effort. I had a brother who was working as a field secretary for CORE and that particular summer he was one of those people that were

rounding up people to participate and that had something to do with it as well. But it was just, you know, the next level of what we were already doing. [Interviewer]--Your brother was one of the people who invented the Freedom Riders, right?] Well, yes, he gets the credit for that, yeah, some of that, yeah. He and, um ... he was very close to Mr. Farmer who was not only an organizer, but he was a participant. We were all in the Mississippi area at the same. [Interviewer-Do you remember when you first heard about the Freedom Riders?] I was...during my college days, during the latter part of the year year, you know school closing. There wasn't in anything particularly going on for the summer so it looked like something worthwhile to do. [Interviewer-How did you join Freedom Riders...tell me a story...] Ok, I went to, I came to Atlanta from....

did some training here with the SCLC and then we were transported to New Orleans where we got further training in nonviolence and how to protect yourself when you encountered those who would do you harm. And from New Orleans we were dispensed to Jackson Mississippi by train. My group was the first group that went into the Mississippi area by train, To test segregation on the train, on the public transportation or whatever. [Interviewer]Tell me what happened on the train? No, we sat, we sat as everyone else did on the train and when we got to Jackson, Mississippi, one thing I specifically remember [unclear words] a whole lotta cameras going off, when we were, you know, getting off the train and then um there was one other young lady who was in my group, Sandra Dixon, and we went to test

using the restroom facilities and that's when we were taken into custody and pretty much we went from the train station to the jail. And then we were tried and we were given 60 days and we were charged with what they call 'breach of peace', which was a term that they had kind of put together for the Freedom Riders because we were coming in waves, and then after awhile you really needed something to charge, so the charge for all of the people who came with the Freedom Riders was a breach of peace, so were put away for 60 days. That was your sentence. And I do remember the courtroom. You could hardly see the gentleman who was the judge. (laughing) He was kinda way up there, but um anyway, it was kind of like

a programmed rhetoric, you know, it didn't really, it was just like something you just went through. He just kind of had the same dialogue, gave out the same sentence and that was it. And the next group came in and I'm sure they got the same thing. [background talking] [Interviewer-- So the train comes into Jackson [Interviewer--Jackson, right? Talk about the details of how you got arrested. Well, like I said,we got off the train and there were all these people, there were loads of people at all of these kinds of events, and any place where you've ever been arrested are picketed. When you get to your destination there are always crowds of people. [Interviewer-I just want to stay on this....] ok

[Interviewer]-It sounds like it's just..... [Another voice] Quiet please! [Interviewer- unintelligible....less than it is, so just talk about, when I got there...."We went inside the station, and um...". [Interviewer]--just say I'm sorry[?] when I got to Jackson]. "When we got to Jackson we got off the train and we made it inside the station and we attempted to use the facilities but they were, you know, they had people stationed there to keep you from getting in, and they took you in. I mean, the attempt was enough for them to take you in, cause this is against the rules and they are in control. So you know it's pretty much um ... well, if you opposed it, then you know, there was maybe scuffling or whatever, of that which is part of the training that we had, but we didn't actually have that to occur. They just kind took us in hand and put us in in the paddy wagon and took us to the county jail. [Interviewer-unintelligible]

[Interviewer-So the judge gives you the sentence but he gives you a choice of 60 days or bail. So talk about what the program was...bail or no jail. "Well we would bail no jail, that was the pattern that we [Interviewer--I'm sorry it's jail no bail jail....laughing...o.k., we had this in our... already been decided. You know if we were going to go we were going to go to jail we were not going to accept bail. So that was part of the effort and it was designed so that we would be arrested and then another group would come and they would be arrested and then we would just overwhelm them to some point where there had to be some decision made about the effort. [Interviewer--(not enough space here for comments] [Interviewer]..the idea was you were going to fill up the jails]

Right, we were going to fill the jails and we, we didn't care about being jailed, we were just gonna keep coming, and so that was going to force them to take a different stand and they only... because their idea, I think, was that when we first came in that we were outsiders and they called us some other not so nice things, but they were going to get us in check. We were gonna be controlled and this thing was going to be over, but it it wasn't really happening that way because our strategy was to keep on coming and keep going to jail, and this, you know, at some point the media media got into it and then it really just spiraled into what we were trying to get to happen -- we were trying to bring some awareness in a national kind of way as to what kinds of things were going on across this country. [Interviewer-if you could just give me that term jail no bail and what that meant again because you didn't say that this time.]

Ok, the jail no bail means that you committed to go on this journey and to do some time, and we're not going to accept bail. And I guess underlining that too to some extent was the fact that the organizations who were sponsoring the Freedom Ride didn't necessarily have large amounts of money to keep bailing people out either. So I guess that was part of it too, but going on the freedom ride you committed to jail time without bail. It was a matter of choice. You accepted the jail time and no bail. [Interviewer-So you know when you go?] Yes, that you're going, yes. [Interviewer-So tell me ...unintelligible) Yes [Interviewer-So you personally knew that you were going to jail. You have to kinda tell me...'cause I'm outta here...] I definitely knew that I was going to jail, I did indeed. [Interviewer--Start over again. I was still talking... Yes when you, when

you when you signed on to be a Freedom Rider you definitely knew that you were going to go to jail and you were not going to be amenable to accepting bail and getting out. That was the commitment. [Interviewer-it seems to me you know and what happens every day there's a...talk to the Freedom Riders every day and we turn off the cameras and we're like... whoa--I mean it seems incredibly brave to me Why, why'd you do this? You, I want...] Well I think that at that time in your life when you're a young person and you're in college and you're kinda trying to find your place in the world and you kind of have been taught, you know, by family, that you're to be community-minded, for lack of a better word. And you're kind of trying to find those areas where you can be of service to yourself ,to your community, to your country, whatever, and there were these ideas that you could make a change in some of the

things that needed to be changed, and so for my part I think that's where my thinking was. That's at a moment in time, too, where you have kind of a feeling that nothing will really happen to you,(laughing). You know it could very wel, but you're kind of naive in terms of what could really happen to you, and then at the end of the day it didn't really matter because you were going out here to do something to help humankind, and you were willing. [Interviewer-doing this in a group, you know what I mean? Doing this with other people, tell me a little bit about that] I think that was an invaluable experience at least for me

to even in the, to get to know other people from other places, with other backgrounds in other environments and other philosophies and all that, but you in in many ways you had a lot of unification of thought perhaps and you kind of had the urge to do things and that togetherness was there even when there was a gap in philosophies, and those kinds of things. It was a coming together of people in a unified way that I think the country had not seen until that point, so there was a feeling inside of the human protest and stuff that went on in the civil rights that was different and it was a feeling, for lack of a better way to express that, it was a connection. [ Interviewer-What was that feeling?] ummm it was it was the coming together for a common cause. It was like bringing peace and then

the whole concept of nonviolence and all that kind of thing was something new, but it was something not so new, and it brought people together and people were willing to cross lines and barriers to forge ahead together and bring about change. I think that's what it was really all about. [Interviewer-As you are talking I just wrote down , as people come together they can do amazing things] That's true. [Interviewer-I thought that one of the great moments was after the first wave of riders gets stopped and then they decide they can't go on and then you all just flood in , this amazing thing.] Togetherness. [Interviewer-And one day what I would love for this film to do is in some ways talk about that for younger people you know....stay back there...but I do think

there was this this this moment there it was really you know we can move mountains if we're together] Right. Together. [Interviewer-I don't know what the question is but if you could give me an answer on that] I think you're right. There was that that underlying togetherness and it it stood all the tests that, you know, that we were put through. We sang and we talked and we prayed and we just kinda got it together, and then at the bottom line we worked together regardless of who we were or where we came from and we had a common cause and that was to improve mankind and to make things equal for all people, and we had to believe that we could do it. [Interviewer-One of the things I wrote as we were talking before, how did it help the white south, what you were doing?] (laughing) Well, I think

in the nonviolent piece [?] gave them, after some time, it gave them some problems. Because if you notice when they would, you know, they would water hose you, and they would do all of these other cruel things to you. There was some in the group, they started out with the maliciousness that seemed to have become bewildered or puzzled or at least questioned if what they were doing was right. Or if it was something that should be, you know they should keep doing. So for the... you had the die hards, but you also had some other people who were terribly confused about this thing about nonviolence. That a human would actually submit to certain kinds of things for the good of all people and that you know they really ... This was not something that they understood at all but they paused to give it

some thought. [Interviewer-I think also in that same way they had to pause and give some thought to why would somebody take a beating like this-unintelligible] I don't think that they understood at all why we subjected ourselves to the brutality and I think that's that's probably what really moved the effort forward. The fact that they just could not understand that people would really sort of turn the other cheek and still keep coming and still keep rising, you know, that was a real puzzle for them. I think that that was the way it had to be at that time. I think it's very much a part of that time, that that was the way it had to be in order to move us forward.

[Interviewer-what happened, you know these hard core people who were never going to change but middle ground people-- [unintelligible] [Interviewer-you know this is the way it is. When they saw you all getting beaten and going to jail and all those things, they had to then look at segregtion and Jim Crow and all... if things are okay then why are these people going to jail, why are they, you know willing to do this and it started to move those southerners who were in the middle and being in the middle was pretty bad but being in the middle]. At least they were thinking about it now. [Interviewer-Ok now talk about how what you did made people think about segregation] Well I think, I think segregation is something that's taught

and I think when something is taught in a culture that a lot of people participate, but they don't really question, they just kinda go along with the flow and this particular effort disturbed those people who took a look at themselves and said--wait a minute, am I really committed to this, is this the way I really feel about other people or am I just doing this because this is the status quo and this is what has been done from generation to generation? And a lot of those people changed. A lot of them were changed because they could not find answers that were satisfactory for them for what they have been practicing and so they tried to do, to rectify, and do something a little different. And part of that may have come out of the fact that the Freedom Rides and in many of the civil rights protests were not all just about black people. We had many whites and...you know, other nationalities and things who went along with what we were doing and they were, they were doing exactly what we were

doing. They were allowing themselves to be abused in this effort and I'm thinking that all of that raised the thought level for a lot of people and even if they were not willing to commit to integration at least they were thinking that maybe they ought to change some of the things that they did. [Interviewer: So, you get arrested; they give you the 60 days on whatever is was, it was not much, $200 dollars bail I think it was it was.] yeah. [$200 dollar bail and you chose to go to jail and they send you to Hinds County. Talk about Hinds County and the smell.] It was pretty bad we had a very small cell that had too many people and it had absolutely no privacy the first cell that I remember being in was, I don't remember how many people were in in there but we had an open face bowl [?] and an open toilet, and, um.. it's not good facilities. It wasn't clean, it was, it was a

jail, and that's what it was. And um our spirits... well, we had, you know we sang at night and we did have the ability to talk to each other and to be with some of the people that were, you know, in that effort with, you know, whatever, and um, I do remember being a spectacle because people came, actually came off the street to see the niggers and the nigger-lovers, and I do remember that on Sundays the, um, reverends would come to minister to those who were incarcerated but they always avoided the cells where we were. They cared to ... the spirituality of ... the whole process [?] to the next cell, which I thought was interesting and at this junction I ... have very comical... [Interviewer: um, mention that this is the smell... ] Yeah, it was this ... [Interviewer: think about it.... you were talking about it... that smell, remember...

for all...] Well, if you have that many people in a consumed [?] space, I mean, you know ... you're gonna have ... it's inevitable and there's absolutely no way for it to be otherwise, and, um, we were fast filling up the jail, which is why I think they could just depart [?] but, um, [Interviewer, (at length), talking about the smell ... you're not gonna hear me talk about it...but you know what did it smell like at that time?] It smells like what ... buzz [?] around to people and the improper um, toilet facilities. Y'know, it's just a bad thing, not anything that anybody would want to really be in. [Laughs] [Interviewer asking how many, uh ... (unclear) ] yes

I did. That was probably the most frightening thing I've ever encountered was that we were taken out very late in the night one night. They just roused us up, they turned on all these lights and they started calling names and we were to file out, and we filed out of the jail into the back of the truck that had no seats and was just a big open truck, and, um, we were hauled away in the middle of the night and we had absolutely no idea where we were going, and 'course your mind went to those stories that you've heard of, things that you've seen, you know. If you grew up in the south, you were familiar with the, with the scenes like men hanging out of trees or horrible things that happened to people in the night, black people. And so we were pretty much on edge as to where we were going. We knew full well that were in Mississippi and those people who visited [unclear] you in the jail thought of you as some kind of spectacle had, ... you know, they made remarks that they could take care of niggers, so you don't know where you're going or what's gonna happen to you. I think that was probably the most

frightening part of that whole situation. Um ... when we got to the parking lot finally, ... Oh, by the way they took us all, and they had four separate trucks and they divided people by sex, and by race, so they actually ran [half?] a number of trucks they need to take us from [ unclear: hand county departure -- ?] Um... we get there, we were rushed into the um a maximum security unit apartment penitentiary where we encountered some very hard core criminals, trustees and whatever that they have in the prison, and the prison guards in there too who gave us the most awful looks when we came in, and so that was kind of terrifying, to know that you're going to be in there, and these were the people who are going to be overseeing your stay, that there was some .... I do remember [laughs] I remember

I remember being, I guess, ... [pre/free?] escorted by some females that were very scary [laughs] and um, they were scary-looking. They were they really were very scary-looking, and they were very hard. They were people that if you had encountered them on the street you'd have crossed to the other side. That sort of person. But any way they, um, they, you know, processed us. They took out everything that we had been given, the prison clothes and whatever. And [at priceman?] we had cells, separate cells. We were not, no longer together so you didn't have that that kind of closeness and you had two beds in each cell. You had a toilet and a [ ?facebook] and so on.