Steve McFagin:
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The interview we're doing today is part of our museum's ongoing oral history project. Today it's a great honor to be here with Thomas Armstrong. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story for this collection.
Thomas Armstrong:
I thank you, Steven, for inviting me here. I really appreciate being here.I guess I should start by saying that I was born in 1941, in Jefferson-Davis County, Mississippi, a small rural town in an all Black community known as Lucas. That community was developed, created by free slaves in order that they would have less contact as possible with Caucasian in the area. That was the reason for the startup of that particular Black community.
My dad was a logger. My mom was a housewife. Dad owned three or four log trucks. He hired individuals from the community to work with him. Evidently, he paid them fairly decent wages. I don't know exactly what those were, but everybody was eager to be employed by him.
So, we had a fairly decent life, financial life in a segregated state, as much as possible for Blacks at that particular time. So, I really didn't necessarily want for anything growing up there.
My first encounter with segregation was at a Dairy King ice cream establishment in a small town nearby in Prentiss, where my high school was located. I loved the blues. I listened to the blues too late one night and missed my bus to school, which was five miles away.
So, I caught a ride into the little town of Prentiss. The gentleman dropped me off in front of an ice cream parlor. I walked up. In Mississippi, at 9:30 in the morning, it's hot already. I walked up there with an arm full of books and asked for a vanilla ice cream cone. The gentleman looked at me and said, "What's the matter, boy? Can't you read?" I said, "Of course," I have all these books here. He said, "Read the sign up there." The sign said white only. He took his thumb and pointed around to the side window and said, "Go around there."
So when I walked around there, there was a 50 gallon metal garbage can half filled with garbage, swimming with flies and so forth. I immediately turned and walked the last 1/4 mile to school. My cousin at that time was principal of that high school. I waited outside his office and explained to him what happened to me. He simply stated, "Don't worry too much about it. We simply will not frequent that establishment anymore."
That's my first indication of overt segregation; knowing about it, discussing it with family, and so forth. That was a mark in my path to fighting for civil rights at that particular time.
Thomas Armstrong:
I left there and went up to Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, which was approximately 60 miles from my home, enrolled there. After my first semester there, a classmate of mine and myself attended what we call a mass meeting in Jackson, Mississippi at that time. Just coincidentally, a young man by the name of Medgar Evers was moderating that meeting.So, he was speaking of how, two years prior, 1956, the Circuit Court of Mississippi had arbitrarily eliminated or deleted many, many names from their voter roles. He requested Tougaloo College students to help him replenish those roles. So, he read some names. I recognized, when he got to my county, Jefferson-Davis, I recognized a few names he read off.
So, I thought I had no choice but to go out, do what I could to help get them back on the voter rolls. So, I joined up with him. It was difficult. It was dangerous. The way it worked was, Medgar would contact our pastors in the 84 counties of Mississippi. They would set up voter registration meetings. So, he would contact students at Tougaloo College and give us dates, and names of pastors, and locations. We would meet the pastors and go from there.
The meeting was under cover — clandestine. Many, many times, half the conducting those meetings, explaining to Blacks in Mississippi the voter registration process, we would take them down to the Circuit Court office, but most times we would let them go themselves. Because if we went, the circuit clerk took offense to that. Many times, we would be beaten up or whatever the case might be. So, they would have less trouble if they went alone.
Now, you have to remember that less than 95%, I should say more than 95% of the people we took there were not allowed to vote. We had to, I guess you might say, there was a voter registration application that you had to complete. That application indicated that you had to interpret one of Mississippi constitutions segment. You could never interpret that to the likes of the circuit court. No matter what you said, you failed.
There were one or two people in the community who were allowed to vote. Many were not well educated at all. The well educated individuals in the community, most likely were not allowed to vote. The lesser educated one, if the clerk wanted him to vote, he allowed him to vote.
Should I continue?
McFagin:
Sure. This is fantastic. I do have some questions I want to ask you, but I don't want to interrupt your narrative, so please continue.
Armstrong:
There are many people, including some civil rights individuals who felt that Blacks did not do enough to prepare their cause during that particular time, '60s Civil Rights era.However, we feel, as well I particularly feel, that we started to progress in the arena of civil rights with the return of our World War I and World War II veterans. We had two World War II veterans in our community; Avery Toney and Curtis [Hoople?]. In fact, Curtis lived only about 1,000 yards from my house.
These gentlemen participated in the Battle of the Bulge, and that was a combination of, really, battles. Curtis [Hoople?] participated in four major battles there, and Avery Toney, six major battles during the Battle of the Bulge.
What's interesting about that is they survived. They came back to Mississippi, to our community, our counties, and were not allowed to vote, and were ridiculed for their efforts, or their attempts to vote. But those two gentlemen took that courage that they had during World War II, brought it back to us, the young people in our community, and demanded from us that we use that courage to try to take our people, Black people in our community a step forward in a society of a better tomorrow.
We did. We did what we could. That, all of that led me to civil rights. I don't think — in fact, I know — I didn't tell my parents when I first joined up with him. But when I did discuss it with them, they felt, my mom, she was a mother. Mothers were fearful for their kids to get involved. Also, simply because people who were doing what I was doing, and my classmates were doing, were getting beaten up and some were killed doing that.
We had a few of our, just to mention a couple of our martyrs at that time; Reverend George Lee, Lamar Smith, and Medgar Evers, of course. But Reverend George Lee was from Belzoni, Mississippi. He was killed May 4, 1955, a few days prior to the murder of Emmet Till in Mississippi at that time.
But he was a minister. He had a printing press. He was a pastor of a church. He used that printing press and his pulpit to promote voter registration. The founders, the fathers of Belzoni met with him once and demanded that he remove his name from the voter's rolls and he refused, so he was murdered.
Lamar Smith, just 30 miles from my hometown was killed in the town of Brookhaven, Mississippi. I think it was approximately 2:00pm in the afternoon, in broad daylight on the {UNCLEAR} lawn, holding a fist full of absentee ballots. Three gentlemen who were accused of that particular murder; one leaving that scene covered in blood; were never convicted. They were charged, but they were never convicted. There were at least 12 witnesses to that particular murder, and it has never been, really, no conviction as of today.
It was a terrible time, living in Mississippi at that particular time. We felt that we had to do something. It was time for — we had waited too long. We had waited too long, really. Our "fore parents" and so forth, they had to wear that mask in public, and pretend they were something that they were not.
The embarrassment of that led, also, to our participation, the younger generation's participation. Seeing our parents walk down the street, having to get off the sidewalk when a Caucasian passed, and were subject to ridicule at the same time; that was very motivating to us. That's up to that point.
McFagin:
Let me jump in with a question, and it relates to what you've been talking about. I have read you used the word "terror" to describe growing up in Mississippi, which is a very profound word. You were the same age as Emmett Till —
Armstrong:
Oh, yes. Same age.
McFagin:
From an early age, that stepping out of line, as it were, could easily result in torture and death.
Armstrong:
Yes.
McFagin:
For the young people who watch this recording, who have no first-hand experience from the '60s, can you give us a sense of the fear? The mindset that you had to live with and internalize every day, in order to make it through that dark time in Mississippi?
Armstrong:
Yeah. As we said before, it was a difficult time during that particular period. It was something that we had to deal with.As I look back at it now, and also then, it reminded me of the 1705 laws that were put in place to control slaves at that particular time. Those laws regulated every aspect of slave life. Those laws stayed in place. The remnants of those laws remained in place all the way up to the passing of the Civil Rights Act.
So, get off the sidewalk when you approach white. If you wanted to purchase shoes in the local store, draw your footprint in a sheet of paper and give that to the clerk. Blacks could not participate in court proceedings unless it was sanctioned, I'm sorry, but whites at that particular time. You could not vote, at that time. There were a lot of things, interracial marriages were bad, at that time.
We had to live with constant fear. That's the best way of putting it. Because someone else, even though they were not with you, it was their ideas and their philosophies that controlled your life. You did not control your life. So, that's one of the things that we had to deal with.
McFagin:
I was just going to ask about Medgar Evers. You got to know him, I assume?
Armstrong:
Oh, yeah. I worked with him for more than two years, yeah.
McFagin:
He was killed in June of '63, I believe. Can you speak to the impact that his death had on you?
Armstrong:
I can speak more to the impact of his life.Medgar Evers was the greatest man that I had ever known, even to this day. In fact, I used to tell my dad that I thought Medgar was braver than him. But my dad would turn, look at me and smile and say, "Yeah, but he doesn't have to live with you. I do."
Medgar Evers, he was field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights organization known as NAACP. He solicited members for that organization, throughout the state. But he did it undercover. Everyone thought that he was an insurance salesman, selling insurance when he met with Blacks in various areas, and on plantations, when he'd talk to them about the NAACP activities. But he was really trying to get members for the NAACP.
Medgar, he was a man of his word. We felt that he knew everybody in Mississippi. Every pastor in Mississippi, every preacher in Mississippi, Medgar knew most of them. At that time, less so than now, churches were leaders of the movement during that particular time. Not so much today.
But Medgar, he was killed because he wanted you and I to have the freedom and the right to work, the right to vote. Today, in Jackson, Mississippi, his home, there's a federal post office building that bears his name, and so does the 689 foot vessel, bear his name today because of the work that he did in the civil rights movement.
McFagin:
Did you have any optimism, as you got involved to affect change, did you have any optimism that you could change the hearts and minds of Southern segregationists?
Armstrong:
Man, are you kidding? Yes, sir. We thought we could change the world. We thought we could change the world, as individuals. It was difficult, but when you walked up to that roadblock and found out that you really couldn't, alone.Yes, we were very optimistic. We spoke of, internally, we spoke of times to come that Blacks would be presidents of this country. So, we were looking forward to what we called "freedom" at that particular time.
McFagin:
Tougaloo, I know, was really the center point for civil rights in Mississippi. Since you were there, could you speak a little bit to the impact that the civil rights movement had on the student body at that time?
Armstrong:
Tougaloo was an oasis. We liked to say it was an oasis in the middle of a sea of hate. Tougaloo College was the only place that interracial groups could go and meet, and converse. Any other place, it would be considered as breaking the laws of the state of Mississippi. Because integration, you see, was banned in Mississippi. It was not tolerated & unlawful.So, Tougaloo College, you felt free when you were there. Just ironically speaking, when you were away from Tougaloo College, let's say you were a student there, and you were away, maybe at home on the weekend. When you came back, and your bus came back, and the bus stop was 1/4 mile from campus's gate. The bus driver would let you out. That 1/4 mile, you would run to get in the gates of the campus because you were vulnerable on that stretch of the roadway.
So, once you got on the campus, once you got through that gate, you let out a deep sigh, a deep breath of complete satisfaction at that time.
Armstrong:
Across {UNCLEAR} but that was due to student participation in religious protests at the time. Tougaloo College students, along with other students, of course, opened up various religious organization to the worship by Blacks.On Friday nights, we would meet at the chaplain's home on campus, and we'd discuss what protests we were going to participate in Saturday morning, on Sunday, in Jackson. Many of those protests were religious, [what] we'd call "religious protests," because on Sunday morning, we'd get up and put our suit and tie on, and go downtown Jackson, Mississippi, and try to worship in a local white church. Many, many times we were arrested right there on the steps, and were not allowed to worship at all.
However, it was the Episcopalian organization that was the first to open its doors to Blacks, then followed by the Methodists. The Methodist was very interesting in the sense that, in the South, the Methodist churches were segregated. In the North, they were integrated.
We reached out to Methodist organizations and ministers up North to come help us open up the Methodist Southern organization and churches. They did. They came to help us. Every Sunday, we had a group of Methodist ministers from various places in the U.S.A. come down to Tougaloo, and go with us on Sunday morning to the local Methodist church. They would get arrested along with us, trying to worship at their own church.
That was ironic, but we did open up those, eventually opened up those churches. I think it took the Baptist organization 20 years to finally admit Blacks to worship.
McFagin:
During this time, of course, John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts is running for President, wins in November of '60. What did you think of Kennedy? Did you have any hope that he would embrace the movement?
Armstrong:
Oh, we had great hope. Oh, yes. We had great hope. We did. I won't say it was in vain. I won't go that far. But we had great hope. We felt that change was coming now. We have someone in the White House who's on our side and so forth.But we ended up being an embarrassment to Kennedy, I believe, because of our protests, and demonstrations, and so forth. Especially during the time when he was trying to deal with [Soviet leader] Kruschev in '62, and the Bay of Pigs, and all of that.
We were out there [in the South] marching and protesting all the time for freedom. That was an embarrassment to him because he was trying to fight for human rights in various countries. But here in his own country, people are protesting for freedom. It was a big embarrassment to him, but we had great hope in him.
Of course, afterwords, in '63, Bobby Kennedy, he added his program alone. King was killed, '63. What was that? Four months later, Bobby, I think was assassinated.
McFagin:
In '68.
Armstrong:
'68, I'm sorry. Yeah, '68. I'm sorry, yes. '68, four months later, Bobby. As far as that administration, gave us great hope for the future, yes.
McFagin:
I do have to ask. As an early Freedom Rider, Kennedy did say that the Freedom Riders were "unpatriotic" because they weren't taking it easy and cooling off. That must have hurt you, or been offensive to you at the time, right?
Armstrong:
Take it a little farther.When the Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C., I believe it was April '61, two days prior to —
Let me walk it all the way. They left on two buses. One took the route, both actually, would come through Anniston, Alabama. But one was three or four hours behind the other one, something like that, time wise. What happened was, when the bus arrived in Anniston Alabama, the bus was firebombed. The Freedom Riders barely got out alive, actually.
The other bus took the route to Birmingham, Alabama. Once it reached Birmingham, they were pulled off and beaten there, also.
But there were students in Nashville, Tennessee, who decided that the Freedom Ride should not end. So some of them, from the universities in Nashville, there were five then, they went to Anniston, some went to Birmingham, boarded buses and came into Jackson, Mississippi, where I was at Tougaloo College, which was 10 miles away.
Now, we were watching all of that on our TVs. Two days prior to that, the governor of the State of Mississippi came on TV and stated that all of the Blacks in the State of Mississippi were satisfied with their life in Mississippi.
So, there we were at Tougaloo College, listening to him with all these statements. He would say something like, "Had it not been for all of those agitators coming into the State of Mississippi, exciting our Blacks here, everything would be great." This guy's crazy.
So there we are, a group of us known as The Tougaloo Four, a classmate of mine and two previous, one alumni of Tougaloo College and her brother. We had a meeting with some more students of Tougaloo that night. We decided that we had to try to help the Freedom Riders in some way.
Once they came into the city of Jackson, police marched them out of their buses, right through the white waiting room in Jackson Greyhound bus terminal, and out the back door into the paddy wagon, and on to jail. Now we felt that they would be killed, too.
There was the chairman or the president, I forget the title. The local White Citizen Council made the statement that they would all be killed once they arrived in Jackson. There were local government officials contacting the Justice Department, stating also that they would be killed when they come into Jackson.
So, we knew the reputation of our prison system. We knew that once you get in there, you were not going to come out the same way that you went in, physically or emotionally, mentally, any way. So we felt that we had to do something to try to help those guys when they came in and were arrested.
So, the only thing we could come up with, we must have been there from 6:00pm in the afternoon to 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, trying to determine ways, how can we help them while they are incarcerated. The only thing that we could come up with was that we had to get in the jail with them. We felt that we had to get in the jail with them simply because we felt that the State of Mississippi would not kill all of us, residents as well as non-residents, which they called outside agitators. We were residents of the State of Mississippi, so we thought maybe that would stop some of the violence there. So, we went down to the Trailways bus station in Jackson at that time and were arrested.
I think we were transported from Tougaloo campus to within a half block of the bus terminal by who we called the Mother of the Jackson Freedom Riders, Jackson Civil Rights Movement, Mrs. AME Logan, named for the Baptist church. I mean Methodist church at that time.
But then Mrs. Logan dropped us off 1/4 mile from the station. There was nobody there. We retrieved our luggage from her car, and made it all the way inside the white waiting room of the bus station, where we took our seats, and we already had tickets to New Orleans, Louisiana.
[The Supreme Court had ruled that segregation laws could not be used to prevent travelers with tickets to another state from sitting wherever they wanted to on trains and busses or using depot "white-only" restrooms and dining facilities. Which meant that the Freedom Riders — who all had interstate tickets — were obeying the laws, not violating them.]So, we sat down, and we had about 10 minutes to wait for the bus. Within about five minutes, the chief of police came into the station. Now, inside of the station itself, there were approximately 20 policeman there. There were passengers milling around, but everybody's smiling because they were privy to information that we didn't have. That was that we were going to be arrested in a few minutes.
But the chief of police came in and asked us to leave because we were disturbing the peace, as he called it. We felt that was impossible because we hadn't spoken to anybody. We had just marched in and took our seats. He said, "Well, that don't matter. You're still breaching the peace." We want to know how so. We showed him our tickets, "We have tickets here, too." He said, "That don't matter, either. You're under arrest." He wouldn't even allow us to get on the bus.
So we were arrested, taken to Jackson City Jail, interrogated for a couple days, and then transported to county jail, Hinds County Jail. I was there for a while.
Now, our intentions were to stay for 39 days. That was the maximum number of days you could stay without being bailed out. You had to post bond within that 39 days. Otherwise, they would transport you to Mississippi State Prison. They didn't follow that rule all the time. Sometimes they transported people right straight to the federal prison. I mean the state penitentiary, known as Parchman.
[Under Mississippi law at that time, people convicted of misdemeanors such as Breach of Peace had 40 days to appeal after which appeals were no longer allowed. So most of the Freedom Riders served 39 days as a protest against their unconstitutional arrests and then filed an appeal and were bailed out.]But anyway, after being at Hinds County Jail a couple of days, one of the jailers came there, opened the cell door where I was and told me to get out. I was skeptical, really, about getting out. I thought it might have been some kind of set up or something.
But anyway, I did get out. They marched me on out to the front desk, I think it was. Anyway, release, I was released. Come to find out later that the president of Tougaloo College paid a bond for me to be released. We really didn't know why we were being released. A young lady by the name of Mary Harrison, Mary Harrison Lee noww. Mary Harrison was a classmate and a fellow arrestee, a member of the Tougaloo Four. She was released, also, but we had no idea why. The reason that we were released was, they wanted my case, the NAACP did, wanted my case to be a part of a class action suit. It was the case, Broadwater vs the City of Jackson, Mississippi.
That case was filed with the intention of removing all of the Black and white signs throughout the South, especially in Jackson, Mississippi, and of course the State of Mississippi itself. So, we took that case all the way to the Supreme Court.
However, we also gave the case to Bobby Kennedy and the Interstate Commerce Commission. It was the Interstate Commerce Commission that ruled that all of those Black and white signs, as well as segregation itself was unconstitutional in facilities controlled by the Interstate Commerce Commission [in other words, facilities used by travelers crossing state lines]. That's how those signs were removed in the State of Mississippi. I was proud to be a part of that.
McFagin:
Absolutely. You were affiliated, as I understand it, with the NAACP, but you also worked with CORE and with SNCC. Young people often ask us about the differences between those different organizations. Can you briefly go into the different approaches that these civil rights organizations took to accomplish ultimately the same goal?
Armstrong:
Most of the students at Tougaloo College, we were members of anything we could join [laughing] to promote civil rights at that particular time. NAACP felt that we should take our fight, our fight should be in the courts, within the judicial system. Not on the streets so much. However, they did pay my bail and I had to thank them.SNCC went more of a direct approach, in your face approach; protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, whatever we could do to make our efforts known. CORE was in the middle. CORE was in the middle of all that.
The Freedom Rides themselves were sponsored by CORE. Eventually, [in Mississippi] they joined up together as the Council of Federated Organization, COFO. That was a conglomeration of those three, plus Southern Christian Leadership Conference organization. They all came together and formed what was known as COFO. COFO was to, I guess you would say synchronize their efforts in the fight, so we wouldn't be duplicating things.
It worked out well. Yes, we were members of all of those. Yes.
McFagin:
You mentioned, I believe, that you were part of some sit-ins. Can you talk about any of those in particular?
Armstrong:
Sit-ins?
McFagin:
Yes, sir.
Armstrong:
It was just a common thing to us, really. But during those times, they were also dangerous. If you were downtown and you were marching or on a sit in, people would pass by, cars throw bottles at you, throw things at you. Of course, call you names, and all of that.The sit-ins themselves were mostly towards establishments, stores in the city, due to their hiring practices. The stores that actually did not want to hire Blacks. It's very seldom you would see Black clerks in those stores. So we did our homework, and if we found a chain, Kretsky's was one, at that time. Woolworth was another one, didn't want to hire Blacks. So, we picketed those. We sat in at their counters. We did all we could to get them to hire Blacks as clerks in those stores. We had boycotts and we did that. We were successful with boycotts. We'd boycott some of those establishments, so we did what we could do.
McFagin:
The kind of abuse that we see depicted, especially with the luncheon counter sit-ins, did you have any training or preparation for the kind of abuse you might endure in those kinds of situations?
Armstrong:
I think you're speaking more in line with nonviolence training, within nonviolence. That was more of an unwritten rule. You had to be nonviolent to participate.People of the South, especially Mississippi, took more or less a different approach than students from various other areas of the country coming in to help us. Those students, to those students, nonviolence was a tactic that they used to promote their efforts. To us at Tougaloo College especially, nonviolence was a way of life for us. It was a way of life simply because if we were other than nonviolent in our daily life, more than likely, we'd be dead. That's the bottom line.
Once you attempted to be violent in any way against the system, you didn't last too long.
McFagin:
What do you remember from the day President Kennedy was assassinated?
Armstrong:
Not very much. I'll say why. It became suppressed.Upon my leaving the civil rights movement, there is a story behind that, but I more or less had to leave. After I did leave, I don't know exactly what happened, psychologically, mentally, or what you might call it. I didn't want to be bothered with anybody. I didn't want to see anybody. I didn't want to participate in any movements. I didn't want to be in any large crowd setting. It was a mental thing. I secluded myself away. I became an alcoholic after that, for a while, and finally decided that, that wasn't the right way to go.
To me, that time, I remember the incident happening. I remember how sad we were. I remember the tears in our eyes because one of our main supporters had been assassinated. I remember all of that. Culture wise, within that year is almost a blank to me.
McFagin:
Looking back on it now, of course, President Johnson very craftily used Kennedy's memory to push that civil rights legislation. How do you feel in retrospect, about Lyndon Johnson and his commitment to civil rights?
Armstrong:
He was a bully. He had to be a bully, though, in that situation. I understand he had to, to ram that through. That was his goal, to get that bill passed, once he committed himself.So, he was a Southerner. I think prior to that, some of us would have called him a racist. But I have to give the man credit. He took the bill. He decided that he was going to follow up and pass that bill that was [introduced] by John F. Kennedy. He was going to do his level best to get it passed, and he did.
Now, don't get me wrong, now. We didn't agree with all of his policies. Vietnam, if anything, he should have got out when he became President. We take the good with the bad. Like some people you know who have done great things, and later in life, they have put themselves in a position doing bad things. So what do you do? What do you do? We appreciate Lyndon B. Johnson.
McFagin:
You didn't talk about your activism for almost 40 years, but you have now started talking, and speaking to groups, and you've written a book. Tell me about that shift in your perspective on this.
Armstrong:
You're right. I did not talk about it. However, I didn't talk about it simply because I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want to deal with the fact of seeing, being out there on picket lines and so forth, and seeing my fellow classmates and friends being pushed around, beaten, and so forth. I didn't want to deal with the fact that it was law enforcement officials that turned my fellow CORE members, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, those guys, turning them over to the Klan to be murdered. I didn't want to deal with all that stuff. I just blocked it out. I just blocked it out.But my granddaughter, she was in middle school. They showed a movie, a documentary of the civil rights movement, Eyes on the Prize, which is a tremendous documentary about the movement. She came home one weekend, when she came to my house. She was, I don't know, 8, 9, 10, 11, somewhere in there, came to me. She calls me Paw-paw, and she said, "Paw-paw, I saw you in the movie." I said, "What movie?" She said, "Eyes on the Prize. We watched it at school and I saw you."
I had to bust her bubble a little bit and let her know that, that wasn't me that she saw. That was someone else. Then she asked me. She said, "Did you do anything in the civil rights movement?" I said, "Well, I did a little." She said, "What did you do?" Oh, I tried to evade that as much as possible. In fact, I think I did evade her on that particular, but her mother heard it. My daughter did. She said, "Yeah, I want to know, too. What did you do in the civil rights movement? Did you march? What did you do?" My wife heard it, too. I hadn't told her.
Now I've got three women on me about what did I do within the civil rights movement? So I told them a few things that I participated in, with others. They say, "Well, you have to put it in writing because we want to know what you did. We'd like to see you put it in writing." That was a stimulus for me to let them know about what I had done.
But by the same token, I was also involved in doing my family history. So, I had a great deal of information on my particular family history. That was a boost for me to get started on the book itself. So, I did that along with a co-author, Miss Natalie Bell, who might be a cousin of mine, not sure. Her mother was an Armstrong from Mississippi, 10 miles away. We found during those year, unrelated families. Come to find out, we may be related.
But anyway, she got my book in front of publishers in New York. They began looking at it. I conversed a little bit back and forth. Then all a sudden a publisher, Health Communications out of Florida, called me one night, about 8:30 at night and said, "We'd like to publish your book." That's how it got published, really. That's how it got published.
McFagin:
That was 10 years ago. I know that you've talked to many, many people since then, sharing presentations about the book. Can you give me a sense how young people respond to your involvement in the movement?
Armstrong:
I think they feel that I did something good. I'm serious about that. I really think they feel that I did something good.I work with young people. Not only do I do presentations in high school, in social studies classes, departments, history departments, and so forth; they have participated in some kind of civil rights activity within their curriculum. I get three or four calls a month to help high school and middle school students with their civil rights projects. In fact, I just finished with three young ladies, sophomores in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania two nights ago, with their project.
So, they look me up from, we have a civil rights veterans site on the web, and they look me up on there. They decided to ask me to help them. I am a student advocate. I try to be an advocate for students, in Page County, where I live, students, high school students. I participated in presentations at those high schools.
I do presentations all over the country, actually. I was doing travel prior to COVID-19. As of March, beginning of the pandemic, I always participated in the Zoom sessions, doing those. I do presentations in libraries, high schools, middle schools, colleges, universities all over the country, wherever I'm requested.
McFagin:
That's wonderful. It's gratifying that someone who had those kinds of experiences is willing to share them all these years later for young people who face their own set of problems in an increasingly devisive world that we live in. Primarily, what lessons from the '60s, speaking to young people today, what lessons specifically from the '60s do you think we can apply to our lives today to get through what we're going through?
Armstrong:
That we were not unlike them. We were young people just like they are today.We realize that they are seeking guidance, but we simply tell them, "It's not difficult for you to answer your question as to where you should go now. You can go where the problems are. Look around your community, your school, your churches, whatever the case might be. If you see something that is not as it should be, then that is where you should go. That is where you should be working."
There's power in numbers. Join up with some civic minded organization. Everyone should be part of some type of civic engagement project, somewhere in their community. Join up with them. If you can't find one in your area, create your own. Create your own. There are many people, if there's no organization there, who have similar ideas that you do. So create your own organization.
If there is insufficient housing in your neighborhood, in your community, that's where you should work. Create housing for everybody. Try to get better housing for everybody.
Also, in school. In your school. We have a problem in school. If our students do a bang up good job in their academic efforts, and get that little assimilated gold medal and a red, white, and blue ribbon, and you've got another group over here that makes 100 basket free-throws and gets a four year scholarship, something's wrong with that picture. We need to revisit. That's something you can work on.
So we know that we changed the world. Young people just like them changed the world. Not only this country, we changed the world in the '60s civil rights movement. They can do the same thing today.
McFagin:
That's excellent. That's excellent. Is there anything that I haven't asked you, any other particular stories or memories that you would like to share with me?
Armstrong:
Too many.
McFagin:
Fortunately, they're all written down in your book.
Armstrong:
Yes. Tougaloo College was started in 1869. Now, ever since its founding, the teachers of that institution were about 50% Black and 50% white. Since 1869, there has been a small, very small contingent of white students at Tougaloo College. It may have been two. It may have been 10, 15. They were offspring of those teachers.So there were always white students there. One of the students was my classmate when I was going. His name was Eli Hostettler. Eli Hostettler was from Ossian, Indiana. Eli came in, he was a Quaker. He represented his organization, as a student there at Tougaloo College, helping us in voter registration and so forth.
Eli, as I said, he was a schoolmate. He was a roommate of mine. We didn't always participate in the same project at the same time, but Eli was beaten up several times in the jail, in his cell, by inmates, simply because he was helping us try to register Blacks in the state of Mississippi. That was terrible, terrible for us.
The other thing is, in higher education, we tried to open up higher education for Blacks in the State of Mississippi. Now, Medgar Evers, 1954, attempted to enter 'Ole Miss, University of Mississippi. He was denied simply because of the color of his skin.
There was Clyde Kennard. Clyde Kennard was from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He tried to enter the University of Southern Mississippi, their name now, another name back then, Mississippi Southern College back then. He was denied simply because of the color of his skin, and thrown into Parchman, Mississippi State Prison for his efforts.
There was also a young man by the name of Clennon King, who a professor at Alcorn A&M, a Black institution in Mississippi. It was in 1958 that he attempted, also, to enter Ole Miss. He was denied simply because of the color of his skin, and he was thrown into a mental institution for his efforts.
The few years later, two or three years later in 1961, I attempted to enter all white Millsaps College in Jackson. I was denied simply because of the color of my skin. They simply lied and said they didn't have 10 individuals that wanted to take the class that I wanted, but there were more than 10 people sitting in the lobby at that moment, when they made that statement, who were attempting to enroll, also. They denied us simply because of the color of our skin.
Of course, there was James Meredith. In 1961, he was denied. It was until the following year he was allowed in, with the help of 350 federal marshals. That night, there was a riot. Two people died when he tried to enter.
Armstrong:
So, some interesting things went on there. And music! People don't all the time associate the music, but music gives you courage. Music gives you courage. If you ever have heard of a young man by the name of Bob Dylan, folk singer named Bob Dylan. He would come to Tougaloo and visit quite often when he was 17 and 18 years old. Bob would come down and give guitar lessons to Blacks in various Mississippi communities.A lot of people don't know that about Bob. I don't even know if Bob would want you to know it. Bob was a unique character. He didn't want to be known as a folk singer. He said, "I just write it and sing it. I'm nothing. I just write it and sing it."
But anyway, he was a tremendous help to us. Not only him, a lot of international entertainers came to the South to participate in the civil rights movement with us and we so appreciate them for that.
McFagin:
That's wonderful. I'm just curious. After all these years, have you ever encountered a white person who was a racist in the '60s, who has apologized to you, or expressed a change of heart?
Armstrong:
No. That's only for John Lewis. They did that for John. No, I haven't. No, I haven't. To be honest with you, I have not. No.
McFagin:
Okay. I was just curious. I ask that question sometimes among the activists that I have the honor of speaking to.
Armstrong:
A lot of times, I once lived in an area cul-de-sac with eight or 10 houses. It was divided between Democrats and Republican philosophy residents. It's amazing. You may have been there five or six years, and your idea of the political standing of these individuals, you'll find that you're completely off balance, off base. The ones you thought were Democrats are Republican. The ones you thought were Republicans are Democrat.I kind of stay away from trying to figure out who people, what their ideas are in politics. In fact, I don't like to, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't like to be completely associated in a political manner; Democrat, Republican, or whatever the case may be. It doesn't matter.
I want to look at the issues. I want to know what the issues are. I want to support the issues. I don't care if the issue that I decide to support, I don't care if it's a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. If I think it's necessary for the common good, and I want to support it, I do it.
McFagin:
This has been fantastic. I am very, very grateful to you for taking part in this project and sharing these stories with me.
Armstrong:
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.One of these days, I'm going to get to see that museum. I've been promising myself I'm going to get there, and I am one day. Thank you so much.
McFagin:
We will have a ticket waiting for you, sir. My great pleasure to meet you in person and maybe speak with you a little further on this.
Armstrong:
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
McFagin:
Thank you. You take care.
Armstrong:
Okay, be safe.
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