The Great Depression; Interview with Shirley Povich. Part 3; Interview with Joe Louis Barrow, Jr. Part 1; Interview with Asbury Smith. Part 2

INTERVIEWER:

OK, so picking up again where you said, so here along comes this black kid and—

SHIRLEY POVICH:

Well, as you know America was still enveloped in the effects of the Depression when Joe Louis came along, and after 1932 when President Roosevelt embarked on all these welfare programs—now I'm not sure that it reached the blacks and penetrated to the same degree it did the whites—so everybody was having a bad time and it was at this time when Joe Louis came along. A black fighter, Negro fighter, made all this progress beating all these guys, even threatening to be a champion, heaven forbid in the eyes of so many whites, yet he began to neutralize all of this anti-black feeling with his own deportment. He was regarded as a simple, honest, good Negro who could punch like hell and had given the people so much to admire in the terms of prizefighting. He was one, becoming one great prizefighter, and he got an acceptance that was relatively speedy in terms of race relations. And this, I think, was his great contribution to integration and the equality it carries, even if he was never aware or greatly motivated by the thought of it.

INTERVIEWER:

Great, thank you. Now, you talked a little bit before about anti-Semitism, what kinds of, how did anti-Semitism manifest itself at that time in America, not so much in Nazi Germany—

SHIRLEY POVICH:

Well I'm not so sure I could be an authority on anti-Semitism—

INTERVIEWER:

Well, in you personally—

SHIRLEY POVICH:

But I would, [coughs] I would suggest anti-Semitism was always there. It wasn't quite as obvious as anti-black prejudices, but it was there on a sub-surface all the time, and particularly among those rednecks who didn't like the blacks, that neither did they like the Jews, you know, and I'm sure that there were, the same could be said of a certain segment of middle America, WASPs, and I think that the, the Jewish people had this to combat all the time.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you have any personal stories of—

SHIRLEY POVICH:

Well I should, perhaps I shouldn't talk, I couldn't talk authoritatively in a sense of my own experiences because growing up in a small town with only four Jewish families in Bar Harbor, Maine, there was no, there was no sense of anti-Semitism that we were aware of. We knew who we were at home, our parents told us who we were.

INTERVIEWER:

What about [phone rings] what about in the '30s?

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

We have to stop.

INTERVIEWER:

We have to stop, we had the phone ringing.

SHIRLEY POVICH:

We, we'd talk about anti-Semitism in the 1930s, I'm probably a poor authority in the sense that I'm already sports editor of a large metropolitan newspaper, and here I am in the position in which—let's face it I'm not seeking anything from anybody, but a great many people seeking things from the sports editor with The Washington Post, whether they want publicity or favors of some kind so I'm on the receiving end—and the anti-Semitism there was so subliminal I couldn't say that there was a great deal. I wasn't on the other side of the fence trying to make progress and handicapped by what, the anti-Semitism that went on. But I do remember, I do remember Washington in the 1930s had a great breakthrough when Mary Anderson—whatever her name-

INTERVIEWER:

Why don't you start again. It's Marian Anderson that you had spoken with.

SHIRLEY POVICH:

Marian, I do remember the great breakthrough in the 1930s when Marian Anderson, after being denied entry to the Daughters, DAR Hall, to perform, was finally invited there at the insistence of Eleanor Roosevelt, and delivered her great concert, which made everybody so very happy with the exception of those dedicated bigots, and this was a memorable event. I contrast it with an earlier event at the DAR Hall, Daughters of the American Revolution Hall, in the 1920s when I was covering police and we get a riot call, DAR, but it wasn't the DAR, it was the Daughters of the Confederacy meeting. There, and they were embroiled in some—

INTERVIEWER:

I'm sorry—

SHIRLEY POVICH:

—heated discussion, and there seemed to be—

[End of Povich interview; beginning of Barrow interview]

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Take one, Joe Barrow.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, [inaudible]? My first question is, what was it, what was it about Joe Louis that captured the imagination of black people, I mean, there were so many, why a boxer? Why him?

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

I think Joe Louis captured the imagination of black Americans simply because Joe Louis was the champion at a time when black America needed a hero. He was the champion when they were looking for hope. It was a segregated America, there was prejudice, there was bigotry. Blacks couldn't go certain places, they couldn't walk certain places, they couldn't eat certain places. They weren't equal in this country, and because of that, they were looking for someone that they could react to, that they could look up to, who would gave [sic] them a sense of self-worth, and that was Joe Louis.

INTERVIEWER:

Why Joe Louis? Why not W.E.B. Du Bois, or A. Philip Randolph, or somebody from the NAACP, I mean, there were scholars, there were scientists, there were other people. Why a boxer?

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

Joe Louis touched everyone because he was heavyweight champion, and

at the time, no black man could not be heavyweight champion of the world. White America kept the heavyweight championship as their province, ever since Jack Johnson and the legacy of Jack Johnson,

blacks were off-limits to the heavyweight title. So when all of a sudden, Joe Louis excelled, and they gave him a shot at the title, and he won the title, and he held that title with dignity and grace, he'd also, all of a sudden, conquered white America, frankly. He sort of, walked places that they didn't they'd ever be able to walk, and he held everyone's love and everyone's stature, not just black people.

INTERVIEWER:

What were some of the obstacles that, you know, that stood in his way from getting to the championship? I mean, some of the, obviously he fought his way there, but what stood in his way, what were some of the things about America or the sport, that kept him-

INTERVIEWER #2:

Can he call him his father? Sorry to interrupt, but...

INTERVIEWER:

OK.

INTERVIEWER #2:

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

Can I what?

INTERVIEWER:

Well, in this case...you can refer to him as—

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

What are we doing, what's the question?

INTERVIEWER:

I guess, let's stop.

INTERVIEWER:

So what was it about your father, and again, not so much just being heavyweight champion, that thrilled people?

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

I think one of the greatest things about my father was, that he was, he came from poor beginnings.

He was seventh of eight children in Chambers County, Alabama,

they went to the ghettos of Detroit, and out of the ghettos of Detroit, he went and achieved one of the highest, highest, most respected positions in the world of sports, and frankly, in the world. The heavyweight champion of the world was king, if you will, the most powerful individual in the world, just like today they talk about the fastest human being, the heavyweight champion of the world was the most powerful individual. And the fact of the matter was, that here was a black man who held the most powerful position in the world, a position that heretofore was not available to blacks. All of a sudden, you see a black man from the ghetto achieving that. I think he touched every black person in this country.

INTERVIEWER:

Why wasn't it available to blacks? What was it—

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

Well, the legacy of Jack Johnson, and the way he was heavyweight champion in the early 1900's, really said to white America that they don't want another black man, because he jeered his opponents. He made his opponents feel, who were mostly an all white [sic], feel like they were inferior, and white America's ego couldn't stand for a black man to taunt his ego over white America's. They weren't willing to accept a black man in that position, because, frankly, blacks weren't able to walk where they wanted to walk, they couldn't eat where they wanted to eat, they couldn't sleep, it was segregation. It was bigotry in the worst, whether it was in the north or in the south, blacks were limited to where they could go and what they could do. Suddenly, a black person reigning supreme in this province that was limited to, only to whites, that was something that gave black people across this country a phenomenal, phenomenal sense of pride and dignity.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

We have to change reels.

INTERVIEWER:

We, OK... sorry, I'm just—

[End of Barrow interview; beginning of Smith interview]

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Take four.

INTERVIEWER:

So why, why is a federal law important, why was there such a movement for a federal law?

ASBURY SMITH:

Well,a federal law, of course, would have precedence over the state, and federal law has national reaction and international reaction, it holds up and gets a body of public opinion which no local community can support. You get millions and millions of people, and they become concerned about this. Even though it may not be entirely popular, if it, if it's anywhere near the media, or above, in the majority, the above majority, it has enormous power. So, that's why a thing like that on a national level has such enormous effect on local situations. Of course, all these things are controversial, and that means there are people on both sides of the question who, who look at it more than one way.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, let me ask you, and this is the crucial question we talked about in the library. What is it about lynching that, that, I mean, that moves you, that's so terrible. I mean, you have a feeling about, something about the social fabric that's at stake here. Can you tell me how, your feelings about that?

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, lynching is an example of a community living by emotion and by prejudice, and by their own personal standards, with no written, or respect for individual rights. Even a man who's the greatest criminal, who has done the greatest crime that could possibly be thought of, no matter what it is, under the American system if a man murders his wife and his children and family, the whole bit, he still, under American law, is entitled to a hearing before an impartial court with a representative, a lawyer to represent him, to present his case. He has individual rights, but in a lynching situation, you don't even have a, you don't have a jury to indict, you don't have a jury to try it, you don't have a judge to make determination, you have none of the legal machinery. It's simply mass action, and therefore is a very dangerous thing, because if it's right, why, I guess it would be all right, but, it's, the chances of it not being right, of it being unbalanced, is overwhelming, because it's just a, just a mob without any controls and legal restrictions. They're not within the framework of American justice system, which requires the opposite, not just individual emotion pouring out in response to an individual situation, but requires—

INTERVIEWER:

OK, can we cut for a second?

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Yes.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, so my question is, and we talked about this before too, when you went to the Costigan-Wagner Hearings, and you testified, did you feel like it was going to be successful, did you feel like, or did it matter that it was successful, was it just the fact of the hearings?

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, my material I presented to them was very brief. They were holding hearings there for, must have run to a couple weeks. I sat there all day, maybe two days, and I got in touch with the person who was in charge of it and I said, I can't do this, I can't be running from Baltimore over here and spending thirty days running over here like this. I said, You'll have to tell me when I'll be, when I will be heard. So, he said, Well, tomorrow morning, first thing, you'll be on the air. So I went over there, nine o'clock it was, and they put me on immediately and then went back to their other work. But then that was in the file, and when they, you know, when they organized it they put it in where they wanted to. But that's how I managed it, because I just couldn't spare the time.

INTERVIEWER:

But tell me what you thought, whether you thought this whole effort to have, to have a federal lynch law, was, was going to be successful. Did you think that they would pass it, did you think it would actually happen, or was it just making a statement?

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, I think the thing I was involved with was a state law. I believe I was not involved with it when it was national law, and of course, state law it would have the state in back of it, and the national law I think was another matter, and I don't remember just what my reaction to that was or whether I testified there or not.

INTERVIEWER:

Well, when you told me before, you thought that, like, that even if the federal law didn't work, it didn't get passed, that it had an impact on—

ASBURY SMITH:

Oh, there's no question in my mind that federal law—

INTERVIEWER:

Can you tell me that?

ASBURY SMITH:

That federal does have an impact, no question about it. There many people who respect the thing... federal law represents legal public opinion, one might say, and when you get law, it really is the fabric of our society, if we don't operate by law then we operate by emotion and we operate by, lack of protection of the individual, it's a very dangerous system. Law is... while it has its faults, its weaknesses, and sometimes people get very disgusted with it, because it drags out and drags out and you hear a lot of foolish testimony, but it's the only protection we have for individual freedom. Without law, there is no protection of individual freedom, for individual rights. The law is our, really a sanctuary, and a very, very important factor.

INTERVIEWER:

Great, OK. Thank you. Can you cut for a second?

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Yes.

INTERVIEWER:

So tell us about the passion that was behind this, because people did say that, when you were a young preacher, you were very impassioned about this stuff. What, what was—

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, I certainly was, because to me, it represented the whole heart of democracy.

INTERVIEWER:

You certainly were what, if you could—

ASBURY SMITH:

I certainly was very much in favor of individual worth, and individual personality, and respect for individual personality. When you get to the point when you have two societies and two laws, one for black people, one for white people, and you deny the black community the protection of the law of the white community, just inherently, for being white, then you set up an impossible situation and sooner or later, it's going to break down.

INTERVIEWER:

Right, but I want to know why you were so concerned, why did it affect you so much, what was it about your background or who you were that had you so impassioned about this?

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, I felt it was the essence of democracy. In other words, if you don't, if you don't treat all citizens with the same respect the law demands for, it's best, then you have an oligarchy of some type.

INTERVIEWER:

Can you cut for a sec?

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Yes.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Mark it.

ASBURY SMITH:

All right? To me, this was the essence of religion, that you had respect for individuals, and it didn't matter whether black, white, rich, poor, good or bad. Even a criminal has rights. He has the right to be heard, he has the right to present any defense he can think of. For example, a man may kill his mother and his children, but if he, he has the right to come in [sic] court and say, I was insane at the time, I was temporarily insane, and bring a psychiatrist in to testify that that is correct. He has a right to bring a personal defense, and I think that individual right is the very foundation of democracy, and if you, uh, and to have the individual right to extend to all citizens is the essence of it also.

INTERVIEWER:

What would you say, what would you say to the people who felt like, you know, we have to protect our womanhood, or we have women that we have to protect from these George Armwoods and these people, and this is the way we're going to do it. Was it...

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, I think, if they, if they don't follow legal procedures then they themselves are as big a problem as the man who's committing the crime. The only way you can operate a society is to operate by rules that are imposed not in times of crisis alone, but in times of calm, reasonable expectations and standards.

INTERVIEWER:

Cut for a second?

ASBURY SMITH:

And standards—

INTERVIEWER:

So, what kind of a place was the Eastern Shore to grow up in?

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, the Eastern Shore as I experienced it was more of a home-like thing, and that is, the family and the love of the people were all there, very sincere, very deep and very satisfying. The weakness of the Eastern Shore was that they had not come into the modern world, they had not given the Negroes the rights that they themselves demanded for themselves. Even my town, they loved Tilly and Lotty, but they had to stay in their place, they had to be at the, in the kitchen or in the wash-tub. They didn't have them to dinner to sit at table with them, or if they did have them, why it wasn't, they didn't have them, they didn't attend the social meetings, they didn't get involved in the decisions. They were a minority and had very little to say in the democratic process. They didn't vote, for what large part. When they begin to vote, why, they begin to get more rights, but in the early days of this movement they weren't voting at all, they were—oh, that's not correct, but it was very slight votes, very little political influence.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, good. Cut for a second.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Yes.

ASBURY SMITH:

With who?

INTERVIEWER:

With Walter White.

ASBURY SMITH:

Oh.

INTERVIEWER:

Go ahead.

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, my relationship with Walter White was, meetings I had with him personally at Hopkins University. The man who was in charge of the Y there got him to come there and speak, and I attended the meeting, and after it was over we went to this man, whose name was... went to his home, and Walter White was there and we had a long conversation. So, I had a real close personal contact with him. And—

INTERVIEWER:

What kind of a man was he?

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, he was a brilliant man, there's no question about that. He had a brother, well, I'm getting mixed up in mind with the ones who were, who were—

INTERVIEWER:

Let's cut.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, let's cut.

INTERVIEWER:

So, tell me, so, you think there was some connection there with the Depression and the economics?

ASBURY SMITH:

Well, I think that unquestionably economics had a big part to play in any social reaction, the whole community gets it, see, I was operating in a rural community, and [sneezes]. Excuse me.

INTERVIEWER:

Bless you.