Elmo Jacobs:
My name is Elmo Jacobs.
Mimi Feingold:
And your address?
Elmo Jacobs:
My address is Box 124, Jonesboro.
Mimi Feingold:
Now, could you say a little bit about how the Deacons got started and what kinds of things had happened in Jonesboro that made you start thinking about forming the Deacons?
Elmo Jacobs:
What started the Deacons, the forming in Jonesboro, was we asked the law to protect our Negros and they wouldn't, so we decided we would start us an organization of our own. We organized this Deacon Defense and Justice Organization, and we told them that we was going to detect our people. And we went to work and got a charter. We got a charter by the state.Anytime anybody, [inaudible 00:00:54], come over in our community, we always check them out. See what they over here for and everything. Before we got this organized, they used to come over to the CORE house and want to run the COREs out of Jonesboro. But after we got out our organizing, we didn't allow no one to come to the CORE house unless he had permission to come. [CORE refers the Congress of Racial Equality a civil rights organization active in Louisiana.]
Mimi Feingold:
Jonesboro was the first place to have a Deacons, wasn't it?
Elmo Jacobs:
Well, the first, that's where it was first organized, in Jonesboro, then it spread.
Mimi Feingold:
Uh-huh (affirmative). And did people from Jonesboro, did Deacons from Jonesboro go to different places and...
Elmo Jacobs:
Yeah, we went to Bogalusa and Ferriday and all and set up these Deacons. In Houma and all, we's got Deacon headquarters up there. And that Jonesboro was the originated place where it first started at.
Mimi Feingold:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). You were telling me a little bit last night about how your car was shot into. And could you tell about that incident and other things that have happened like that?
Elmo Jacobs:
Yeah, I can tell that. Well, we had had a mass meeting at night at the skating {UNCLEAR} and-
Mimi Feingold:
When was that?
Elmo Jacobs:
That was back last summer. And students here was from Kansas.[Referring to volunteer civil rights activists.]They was here visiting us. And one of them had ran out of gas. And his car was over there, and I went up the station to get him some gas and the fellow didn't have a gas can, and I told him I had a two-gallon gas can [inaudible 00:02:28]. And he said okay. Well, I turned and start off from the station, a station wagon pulled off ahead of me, a '54 brown Chevrolet. And we was traveling north, and I was behind there. And I seen the fellow picked up a gun, he had over the seat like that. Well, I just watched him. And I went to give a signal to turn right off of 167, he stopped, and he shot my car one time with a single barrel shotgun.
Elmo Jacobs:
Well, that's made me went to shooting. I shot four times. And so [inaudible 00:03:06]. They shot with a number one buckshot. They shot 14 holes in my car. Well, then I called, and the laws, they wouldn't come over here until the FBIs come. And they tried to get me to let them take it over, and I wouldn't. I turned it over to the FBI. So, they found out who shot my car and everything, so they didn't do anything with me about it. Few of them tried to talk about charging me with attempting to murder and all that kind of stuff, but they never didn't do nothing about it. So I got my car fixed and all, so.
Mimi Feingold:
Has there been any other trouble like that?
Elmo Jacobs:
Haven't been any more trouble like shooting at me since. I've had several threats but that was over a phone call.
Mimi Feingold:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Have there been any cross burnings?
Elmo Jacobs:
Since then? Well, there haven't been any-
Mimi Feingold:
Or before then?
Elmo Jacobs:
Well, there have been some burnt before then, but it's way out on the suburbs of town. They won't burn none around in here.
Mimi Feingold:
Oh, where's the cross from that's leaning up against the back of this building?
Elmo Jacobs:
Oh, that was brought from down here pretty close by [inaudible 00:04:17].
Mimi Feingold:
Uh-huh (affirmative). When was that burned? [inaudible 00:04:21].
Elmo Jacobs:
That was burnt last... That was in the summer of '64, I think it was.
Mimi Feingold:
Oh.
Elmo Jacobs:
That's an old one.
Mimi Feingold:
It's a relic.
Mimi Feingold:
Would you be able to tell me how many people you have in the Deacons or don't you?
Elmo Jacobs:
Well, I wouldn't want to discuss that.
Mimi Feingold:
You wouldn't want to... Okay, well, thank you very much.
Elmo Jacobs:
Thank you.
Provided courtesy of Freedom Summer Digital Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
Copyright © Elmo Jacobs & Mimi Real, 1967
For background & more information see:
Deacons for Defense
& Justice
Additional web links: Deacons for Defense and
Louisiana
Movement
Copyright ©
Copyright to this web page, as a web page, belongs to this web site. Copyright
to the information and stories above belong to the authors or speakers.
Webspinner:
webmaster@crmvet.org
(Labor donated)