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

oh yes that was very humiliating those people were very very rough with handling new and you know they were just imagine ceiling we was tipped about lack of thing we were given a number that would say like a number and there we were sent to sales tu tu sai and i remember very vividly the debts they weren't very there when this they had very young made her son and they wore crime groups with manilow blues with the spikes on the back and so they became eighties know you could hear the outcome amanda sale what they made noises and they were wrong they would actually come and stare at you in your sail they are now i deliver and when we had we had a

shower was a week and to that we had nothing to wait to the show you were totally and clay and the idiot the male guards working full view is you took a shower and he did not take one they would come and yet you so there was no option for that id they came and get you it was rumored that they would count why shoot down with some kind of brushed it had very harsh bristles i don't know that that was ever tasted but that was what we would tell our home and that was very humiliating that said that was once of weeks you know you had that that was something you did not really that finally today and buy just strange man walking through it standing and watching you take a shower or whether we will prison in blank in ways i found the old movies and

pious men was not a great experience for me because at vail it with isolation at least then they can say you know what day it was he could tell if it was day and night but at that in a maximum security unit price when you had these little but look at the very top of both the wall at the time was a very small opening that was matt window so it was like being ten and in some kind of attack in space and you didn't know they are native of it it was not a gaping hole in how a man so i'm a team at new us at i was eighteen years i guess it says a lot of

our interviewers he was a cold it was and it you know it as well i think bad during that time we would have been because we had more freedom to do better than our parents the afghans and i love that and still work for weatherman so this week and so we had more we were little eddies can make it from like at that time because we were night comedian to zhao xin and then things like that so we had that freedom we had the time and fortunately we had the commitment so i think it was the date the usefulness of it was at an idea whose time had come and this was our lead to make them moo i just think that we had the

capabilities way as her parents did and for whatever reasons and then the reasons were many oh yeah and another brother who was active at claflin with us we were all it defines who he was an active in the demonstrations in an iceberg or near high matt really at some point there are a couple of them a couple of cross' burned in my father's an aphrodisiac that those people in the cause was a he never knew who politically and heat heat i've had a gaggle and public lands his garden was vandalized in the summer as the debt may have banned he had something to do with their activities

but that it didn't they didn't experience a homeland this competition and what we would do oh yeah maybe a bet on two occasions they were crosses burn in their urine i well yeah you would be it would make you frame differently than you did before you had a cross burning year a mountain out and we lived in the neighborhood that my father's own with in ways we actually did not have in me in a closed black neighbors we lived right over the airwaves telander end it was really current truly would run out and the people that they were all of that went around the hat our house was called louis county ky roadmap and that she would omega man settlement bag

there was all white that we were kind of right out we turn off of two hundred so we didn't really head of a whole lot of playing neighbors your father's day and now he never did my father my parents where they never tried to dissuade us from what we were doing and how accurate is that singing yeah you're welcome he's done this period there were a couple of crosses burn in my parents home my parents home and arm as you

know that cross burning generally maids that you don't want but regardless of that our parents never ask us to limit our activities as far as the civil rights movement we will and we had full reign to do what we thought was right and so we were not as batman to give that in spite of the cross burnings or why only because my parents were and they were they wanted us to always to do we were always thought that we could do whatever we put luke top to do to finance and to try and do things that were right things that were good for the common good good for the community good for the nation that for yourself and they had this belief that we could do better mind back to this fire back exactly remember we would tell it you are

going to college you and that is going to stay in this textile town and you will do better and so being this was the kind of commitment that they had to us doing better than they have done but they were also armed force in him a not necessarily working for white people and so they they did kind of i stumbled a little bit and so once again i'll go back to where we had more leverage to do things and they hit and so i think they were very proud that we were making this camp and they were behind as much as they could be and all areas and so we when that tonight santa touched by them and they said go for it and so we did it do you yeah they were

terrible play covers communist and they tried to align as with all kinds of organizations and no i ever heard now and then in the south there was always this thing that those people have come here from somewhere else to stir up problems between mr negroes given everything they think they need and then they laugh that educators and with all kinds of things were said about us in the local press was just terrible and in mississippi was awful things that they were they refer to us is being a music so you know i miss that all the women and they insisted that this whole thing was about why spend less or getting together in an a man my mom and turned away and that all of the people that we are moving around in those groups that there was some kind of prank on sexual tang gone on between the banks and the whys and does all kinds of whatever we get some some some matter of the basic but

so they were very anti him in a instances what actually get federal people involved in some of the things some of that kind of quieted out because then you get a car spun is from the big magazines like ham and now and saturday evening post and an end these kinds of things and they were riding very different kinds of projects because they actually travel with us in many instances and it a lot of interviewing and kind of reporting what they actually were hearing insane and a fairly decent way these deals or liane well they can have a game our allies to many many years this is a case of the us also nice and some of the abuse with it than i did different if we get mad hand them along the way they were kind of a barrier between city

yes but it's been so long well you know that i was being interviewed on the train as we were going for annoyance to memphis by a gentleman from the fetid evening post which is at a very high profile magazine at that air and i mean this year these theories is that at their ten and there were a lot of reporters that were you know word from ten to ten were among us and actually interviewed various people and and really did write a fair articles about what was happening and why he said i was being of these

house races that you say it if they want to write and you know you go into work well i was interviewed by age and yemen from the same impulses we were en route to ah jackson and i thought that was interesting that their interview is on tape today ah i don't know that i gave that up a lot of the tape to be honest with me they know are because you know you never know but you know you didn't have any idea what kind of sense would be made of which you dear did not say oh

how how it would be inflated on the ladies didn't matter a minute dabbing given a whole i think he does ghana gave an honest answer and they'd fly order to be honest you know it did make me feel particularly important because in the thick of things i was you know i was that oh really my leaving about myself wasn't overly him lately the maoist is doing this piece that i could do was not trying to necessarily show it was part of a total package if you let it i really now yes the voice of a newspaper as we had the newspaper please pt

he's very career we get their papers chicago defender than what my house call was a very well my parents were a lot so we had a lot of reading material and including black newspapers the importance of appeal to those folks is the importance of oil glands that is a it will get to report in the way what you just said so what's important so you know you had well it was actually two to blackness were you know many of us were i'm a will have parents won a wood to do a lot of travel from place to place you know so you have newspapers they get you abreast of what was going on

in other places it's a related to black people so it's been very basic in our environment for us to you know to keep interest without like newspapers and magazines a main almost every bag they had ever had and it was it was that they were you know you just kind of needed back to keep you abreast of love what was happening so they surveyed a worthwhile purpose so while a way as we think of the piano that balance something to the scam make it the comparison with us well while you know opposition was a review is a play well you you get a view of your blackness and in its on its own terms and the black newspaper was able to express itself in ways that

were more positive for our people and for learning i would even say because you know im in their white prius we were that yes ten and the ideas arab moves and which is not good for it especially for you you know to so they eat the at least you're young people came did know that there that there was something out there for them that head positivism about it good or so genes so utah press is there as a press and says a previous

president i do is educate is the white press the white friends i can do i press that their doses agitate is we will call communist we were referred to as how sad is for it especially in the south you know they saved it people that come from other parts of the country maybe it's coming down to spiro a lot of mayors between these southern in the southern towns with between the whites in the negroes and we do it is we leave and it was the event insinuated that this was the people inside this particular moment wael about how the mason of the races say to mixing of the races in that kind of thing in this anything the press has picked up on anything that was negative that they thought would fly as a story are allowed

to allow them davis did do some of the foolish things that were being sober is again yeah but why pressler pianist and dairy a white southerner is they're white southern france who have very negative and it's our reporting of the activities related to the civil rights movement than we were referred to as communist and agitators outset agitators then

it was insinuated finance the basis for this whole movement was too mixed the races and the sexual piano and that those who are white susannah with this that was their reason for being with us so whenever but i'm these while tech geeks to destroy the movement and to also perhaps gives some leverage to local communities so that they could carry out would ever ever a time zone ghoulish list they wanted to carry on they had some kind of a cover an umbrella thought these were their reasoning is i'm so glad to hear he gave this way honestly no no we were completely unscathed

he's you know we were actually only on tv we read hands can at wesley we feel that we eat when we eat we were arrested that leads to something we were arrested in jackson and we were in both hands county enhance it ej and then as we the game is we feel both places we were ultimately taken to person