American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Delores Boyd, 2 of 2

[Boyd] There was no difference in actually going to the mass meeting, I probably went with my aunt, I may have gone with other relatives, but it was a normal mass meeting in route, getting inside, finding a place, we noticed very quickly that seats were taken and we knew that this was going to be a huge turnout but we had our usual singing and usual greeting from ministers and probably would've been there at least an hour, hour and a half when we realized that this would be different. Word-- we we could hear outside noise, we could hear the jeering of the-- the taunting and the word came back that there is a mob outside, some klansmen were robed and they were all throwing things at the church. A car had been overturned, so those reports came to us while we were inside. Then we realized that we were trapped, we could not leave the church that

night with that type of mob jeering and taunting outside. That made it different, I don't remember going home until early morning and by early morning I mean four or five that morning and we could go home then only because we had police protection. [Interviewer] Do you remember what what you finally did, did you fall asleep, what was the feeling-- and you said, the kids were taken down to the basement for protection, is that-- [Boyd] Actually we were there for two reasons. One, there wasn't much room upstairs. There's a balcony to that church, there's a main sanctuary and there were people everywhere. But secondly, when it became apparent that we'd end up spending the night, it makes sense to send the children downstairs so that some of the much younger ones could fall asleep. There was food, snack-type foods there. We played. We talked. I don't really remember going to sleep, it was so difficult to sleep in that

environment. It was a tension filled environment that was positive. Outside, the tension was negative. Inside we were all getting a lesson in courage. I can say that now, I probably didn't know it at age eleven. What I did know that I had never heard in any speaker's voice any tinge of fear. As a child what I was struck by was how full of hope the entire congregation was and how it filtered down to the children so that instead of crying and being afraid, we were laughing and talking as if everything were normal, and we'd occasionally peep outside and find very comical this scene of these Klansmen robed in their hats and

taunting us and throwing things at us. We just felt sorry for them but at that point as a child, we really just laughed at them. [Interviewer] Do you remember how you finally got out of the church? [Boyd] Getting out wasn't difficult. By morning the mob had dispersed and I left the same way I came, in the company of my adult relative, I believe it was my aunt at that time, we got in our car, our car had not been overturned as some had, and we went home. [Interviewer] Why was there, why do you think that this movement erupted at the time it did, you know, there had been I mean my contention is that there had been a civil rights struggle from the moment that black people came here, we've been fighting for civil rights, but at some point in the fifties and sixties, and we want to stay back here in '61, but there's this

explosion, there are these mass meetings, you know, why, and this isn't from the point of view of an eleven year old girl, this is from the point of view of you now, who's, you know, lived a life and a very smart person and I'm sure had studied this, why do you think this happened at this time? [Boyd] There's always a triggering event for every revolution. The trigger for Montgomery civil rights movement was Rosa Parks' forceful stand to desegregate the city bus. Once that happened successfully it was simply a matter of finishing the business. When you live under strict Jim Crow laws, where there are white and colored signs dictating where whether you drink water from a particular fountain, whether you go to a restroom, or whether you can eat at a particular place, you are left with a sinking feeling that something is

wrong. So the movement through 1961 was simply on the same line. It was a continuation of the struggle for a people to enjoy full first class citizenship. Once it started, once Rosa Parks showed the power of a people to make a difference, lawyers who were prominent in the civil rights movement helped the other activists like Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy just orchestrate what's the next step, what's our next direction. [Interviewer] You were born and raised in the south in this kind of period is waning, and we hear about people can't drink at fountains, got to go upstairs at the movie theater, but you know if you had to tell me your most vivid memory of segregation, the one for you personally, what would that be? [Boyd] Absolutely

seeing a fountain over which the sign "colored" hung, a fountain adjacent to it over which a sign "white" sign and being left with the confusion of a young child, probably no more than eight or nine as to whether the water differed and why it differed. When you are forever forced to see signs suggesting inferiority, as a child you can take that and either go inward and believe that you are or become emboldened as I was because I felt even then that there was something wrong with the law. So that what triggered my desire to be a lawyer quite candidly was the realization that the law itself was being used to separate a

people, a whole class of people, for not a good reason. [Interviewer] I want to try to stick here on the freedom rides, since that's what our film is about. What do you think the freedom rides accomplished? What do you think this thing accomplished? [Boyd] Well the obvious accomplishment of course was the desegregation of public transportation through deep south, that they accomplished the goal that was the initial reason for the freedom riders. But more importantly the freedom riders introduced to those who were then living in the deep south the notion that there were fair minded white persons who were willing to sacrifice themselves, their bodies and their lives, because they too believed that the country had an obligation to uphold its constitutional mandate of liberty and justice for all.

Heretofore, all black people had been involved in the movements between the bus boycott and the freedom riders. With the freedom riders we saw as many white students as we did blacks and that was refreshing for those of us who were living in segregated housing, to know that there were whites who were as enraged as we were about racism and about segregation. And I think it opened our eyes so that we didn't paint all white people with the same broad brush of being anti-liberty, anti-justice, and anti-black people. [Interviewer] Great. Is there something that I haven't asked you that I should have asked you? Something that I'm missing? [Boyd] Nah. You're missing nothing, as I told you you're going to get more from those who are a bit older than I whose recollection of the details are better. I've told you probably all I can given my age at the time. [Interviewer] Is there anything that you remember from that church that we haven't talked about at all? As an eleven year old girl is there anything you remember

saw, smelled, heard? [Boyd] Nah. Not really. [Interviewer] Did you see Martin Luther King? [Boyd] Yeah, but we'd seen him before. [laughter] You know that's the thing, my what's seems now so rare was so commonplace to us if indeed you were brought up in that Monday night mass meeting. Now remember at age seven, that's at least four years. So four years, and I mean these were every single week, weekly mass meetings and Dr. King's presence, his persona, all of that was certainly something that inspired us but we were accustomed to him. [Interviewer] These were kind of political meetings every week. [Boyd] Every Monday night there was a mass meeting and that mass meeting gave us directions for whatever was happening that we needed to be involved with, you see the lawyers were working on several fronts, they were working to desegregate schools, they were working to desegregate the public parks ah so the reason for the meeting was to make sure we

knew what steps we needed to take and to keep us all on the same page fighting segregation. [Interviewer] We need some mass meetings now. [Boyd] Well unfortunately they won't work now. They won't work, that was the mechanism of the day, minds. [Interviewer] I'm going to ask you to start again, please. Those mass meetings were absolutely critical. [Boyd] Well they were absolutely critical. [Interviewer] You have to say "those mass meetings". [Boyd] I'm sorry. Yeah, those mass meetings between the 1950s and mid-1960s were absolutely critical to the success of the civil rights movement. The mass meetings brought together people across economic lines, there were doctors, there were lawyers, but they were poor people with no jobs. We weren't so hung up as a people on class. We were all in the same boat. That is the feeling that we probably have lost since the late sixties. There are more

concerns about middle-class, upper-class, lower-class disadvantage. The mass meetings though, served to say to us all "we are all black people subject to Jim Crow laws. Thus we all must unite in any organized protest against those laws." And they succeeded because we were all working together, sitting together, exposed to the same dangers. [Interviewer] Okay, let's just get some room tone here. We just need 30 seconds of quiet. [silence] [silence]