Provided courtesy of Freedom Summer Digital Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
[Background: From its founding in the early 1900s to the time of this interview, Bogalusa, Louisiana, was a "company town." Roughly 40% of the working population were employed producing paper and chemical products for Crown Zellerbach (CZ), a corporate giant headquartered in San Francisco CA. The company provided more than two-thirds of all municipal taxes, they politically controlled city government, and the police cooperated closely with the CZ security force. Located in the Pearl River region of Southwest Mississippi and Eastern Louisiana — an area often referred to as "Klan Nation" — Bogalousa was known as "Klantown U.S.A."]
Mimi Feingold:
Could you give me your name and address?
Robert Hicks:
Robert Hicks, 924 East Ninth Street, Bogalusa, Louisiana.
Mimi Feingold:
Could you describe the history of the Bogalusa Voters League, and how you got involved in it?
Robert Hicks:
Well, the history of Bogalusa Voters League, as I know it, has been an organization that's been here quite a while. It was an organization that was first formed by Mr. Joe Dean, a blind man that started voter registration, this was our principal object objection. They started it off, and later it was headed by Mr. William Bailey. He was ousted about four or five years ago in a political issue, where he went against the general body in asking that the Voters League endorse a candidate which the membership did not want to endorse. From this, he was ousted, and it came up under a new person, Andrew Moses, the president of the Bogalusa Voters League.
Robert Hicks:
About this time, he was there about a year and a half, right before the Civil Rights Act of '64 was passed, during '63. The real conflict in the Voters League started when CORE sent letters in that they would be in the Bogalusa area, and from this the mayor made some statements, and the members of the Voters League under Andrew Moses went out and asked that they not come in. From this meeting, which everyone's quite aware of, Brook Hayes and the Klan blocked this meeting and put a bad mark on Bogalusa. From this, the commission council and the white structure set up a day of testing in Bogalusa, and invited the Bogalusa Voters League, as we would say, as the Guinea pigs in the operation.
Robert Hicks:
We were called in by the mayor at this time, when we heard about the Voters League refusing to let CORE in. They had a meeting at the labor union hall, where most of our meetings were being conducted, and the Negro community responded to this meeting, and they had quite a few arguments, and they reelected some officials.
Robert Hicks:
This is when I was elected treasurer of the Voters League. Ms. Jenkins came in as the secretary of the Voters League. When we were called by the mayor to come over to have a day of testing, we went along with the mayor's program, and we went out and invited CORE in after the mayor said to get any organization in to help you. From this, we went down and contacted Ronnie Moore, who was head of the Louisiana project at that time. Bill Yates and Steve Miller came into Bogalusa, and we went through a day of testing, and all the places integrated except about two. From that, we started running trouble, when the police force wanted to get the CORE workers out of town. It's been the first time that any white person had come in and stayed in a Negro neighborhood.
Robert Hicks:
They wanted them to get out, and unfortunately, or fortunate enough that they were staying in my house, when we refused to put them out. We were contacted that night, after the day of testing, by the chief of police and the deputy sheriff. These people were asked to leave, a mob of people were forming, and this is when the trouble broke out in Bogalusa. We found out that this was just a gimmick, just a thing to get the black spot from of Bogalusa. We set up another, on our own, of testing, it's when all the restaurants that had integrated refused admission to Negros. And by the way, we had to take them into court and had the courts desegregate the restaurants.
Robert Hicks:
One turned private, several little small restaurants closed up and refused to serve. At the present, even though the court order said they must serve Negros and they refuse to close up, you will still have to have the police department to be present, and if you don't have some other protection besides the police, maybe bunch of Negros with you to more or less give you some personal protection, you still cannot go to restaurants and eat.
Mimi Feingold:
That's what happened last night, isn't it?
Robert Hicks:
Yes. We had some people go in last night, and we had people waiting outside to make sure that nobody's car had sugar, maybe sand put in their tank. There was one or two people, there were two people on the outside. After about an hour and a half, there were about 15 or 20 whites together outside.
Robert Hicks:
Give a little background too?
Mimi Feingold:
Yeah, give a little background to the deacons.
Robert Hicks:
After the movement began in Bogalusa, because of the police position in refusing to protect Negros, at this time we had Bill Yates, a CORE worker that had been in contact with another white person CORE worker from north Louisiana. They came up with an idea of self protection. From this, out of Jonesboro, Louisiana, the deacons were originated. Bill Yates got in contact with the people in Jonesboro, and they set up a meeting between Jonesboro and Bogalusa. From this, we invited the people from Jonesboro down, and we set up an organization in Bogalusa called Deacons for Defense and Justice.
Robert Hicks:
If it hadn't been for these people setting up the idea of people willing to protect themselves, Negroes, I'd say we wouldn't be here today. The fear of the deacon itself, of violence, stopped the Klan from doing a lot of night riding and harassment of workers that had come in, CORE workers that had come into Bogalusa. The deacons have been very essential to the people in Bogalusa, thereby giving us some type of protection for ourselves when the police force refused to give us protection.
Mimi Feingold:
Okay. I just wanted to ask you one other question. Do you work at Crown Zellerbach?
Robert Hicks:
Yes.
Mimi Feingold:
Have you been involved with the union there?
Robert Hicks:
Yes. You have to belong to the union once you join. I've worked as a shop steward ever since I have been employed there, and also as trustee of the union. I've been real active in the union. Right now, at the present, we have a suit filed, rather I have a suit filed against Crown, for discrimination and lines progression. And also, charges have been filed against the international and local, the white local 362 and the Negro local 624, as parties to the discrimination at Crown.
Robert Hicks:
We have filed a suit after an investigation by the government that they found discrimination in the plant. We now have entered into court, and the judge went along with the decision of the Crown Official International, and our lawyers are settling out of court. After two meetings, we were unable to solve the situation, and the International contacted the white local, and the white local said that they refused to change the line of progression, do a line of progression that is. We are now going into court, and they're going to fight an issue that's contrary to title six and seven of separate lines of progression, one for white and one for Negro.
Robert Hicks:
We'll not try to integrate the union or have one union, for purposes of handling the complaints of some type of recognition. I imagine there will be one later on, but at the present we feel it wouldn't be to our advantage to integrate the union at this time.
Mimi Feingold:
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Copyright © Robert Hicks & Mimi Real, 1967
For background & more information see:
Confronting the Klan
in Bogalusa With Nonviolence & Self-Defense
Additional web links: Bogalusa LA Movement
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