(352) 392 AAHP 340 Cora Tyson ...ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/AA/00/06/62/40/00001/AAHP 340 Cora Tyson 5-12-2014ufdc.pdfAAHP 341; Tyson; Page 2 T: Oh, he was with me a long time. I don’t

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AAHP 340 Cora Tyson Interviewee

African American History Project (AAHP) Interviewed by Carol Rovinsky on May 12, 2014

51 minutes | 29 pages

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Program Director: Dr. Paul Ortiz

241 Pugh Hall PO Box 115215 Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-7168 https://oral.history.ufl.edu

AAHP 340 Interviewee: Cora Tyson Interviewer: Carol Rovinsky Date: May 12, 2014 R: Anyway, so I am speaking with Ms. Cora, and this is— what’s today?

T: Today is Monday.

R: Monday on May—

T: May twelfth.

R: Okay, Ms. Cora knows it all. So, we’re just talking about when Martin Luther King

would come to her house, and he stayed at the house and she’d cook for him.

T: Mmhm. He was not the type of person that would come in and demand this or

that. Whatever you fixed for him, he was grateful. But he loved seafood, as I said.

But at night I would come home and I would do steak, I would do T-bone steaks,

I would do mashed potatoes, a tossed salad, rolls—something like this would be

too heavy that time of night. And one day I was getting ready to go to work. I said

to him, I said, Doc, what would you like for me to leave so you have—? He said,

don’t worry about me eating. He said, the only thing I want you to do for me is

leave me some tea. He said, you make the best iced tea and I love it. I would

make three pitchers of iced tea and leave them in the refrigerator. When I’d come

in the afternoon they would be sitting on the side. [Laughter]

R: Wow.

T: He loved iced tea.

R: That’ something.

T: He really did.

R: How many times did he stay with you?

AAHP 341; Tyson; Page 2

T: Oh, he was with me a long time. I don’t know or remember just how long it was.

But when he came to my home he had dinner here twice. He had been here

twice. I had not met him, I hadn’t seen him, or anything because at the time I was

sick and I had surgery. So this was on the eve of me coming out of the hospital

and getting back on my feet. When he came his third time, that’s when I got to

see him and meet him. And he was an amazing person, he really was. He never

interviewed anybody. He always meditated before he talked to anybody.

R: I love that.

T: He meditated. They would come to that door and they said, Doc, Mister So-and-

so is here to see you. He said, okay. He’ll sit there. [prolonged silence] And when

his head would come up that person would walk in that door. It was amazing.

R: Did he sometimes meet with people at your house?

T: They came in there all the time. My house was open to them.

R: Open to them.

T: That’s where he was. That was his headquarters at that time, day and night, you

could find him there.

R: Right. Are you still in the same house?

T: Mmhm. I sure am. He was amazing. He have had I bet you ten reporters on the

phone, and he’d be talking to them. And that would be in my kitchen. I didn’t

know what he was saying to ‘em, his voice was just that soft.

R: What an opportunity for you.

T: It was. It really was an opportunity to me to have been in his presence as much

as I was because my husband and my son was heavy into the Movement. He


looked at me, he told my son—they went out one night. It was during the

demonstrations. He said, “Roland?” He said, “You didn’t hit nobody, did you?”

[Laughter] He said, “Well, I kinda rubbed up against—.” He said, “Well I’ll forgive

you, because that’s that vicious in your momma coming out.” [laughter]

R: Oh, I love that. Oh.

T: He was funny, but he was thorough. We would sit on my porch on the steps. He

and I would sit there and the Klan would ride by.

R: Daily?

T: Daily. It was something else.

R: Did they do anything to your house?

T: No.

R: So when they have the pictures of the gunshot when Martin Luther King was

here, it was someone else’s house?

T: That was out on the beach.

R: Out on the beach. And that was before he stayed with you?

T: Uh-huh. That was before that, because that’s where they thought he was, but

they never kept him in—he stayed in my home longer than anyplace in St.

Augustine. They never bothered me, they never bothered him.

R: Did you ever feel afraid?

T: Nope. I didn’t get afraid until after it was all over with. I got up one morning—I

imagine it was after twelve o’clock—to go to the bathroom and I saw this light

through here. I walked up some stairs, and I looked out and I saw a state

trooper’s car parked right behind Dr. Hayling’s office. I came on out to the foyer


and I looked across the street. There was another one parked between the

church and the parsonage. The house next door at that time was the Colotuits’

home. It was one parked there in her driveway. I said to him, where are all these

cops doing here? He said, well, I don’t know child. He said, you know how the

cops are. So I said, to her, I said, Mae, I said, you know the cops are parking in

your driveway? She said, Ladybug—she always called me Ladybug—she said

they been doing that ever since Dr. King left. I said, oh? She said, yes. So I didn’t

say anything. One morning, here come them in the yard. So I asked, what’re you

doing here? He said, coming to see about you. I said, what you mean you came

to see about me? He said, have you seen any state troopers? I said, yes. I said,

what’s that’s all about? He said, they’ll be here for six months guarding your

house. I looked at him. I said, why? He said, well, ‘cause of the Movement. And

with that, that’s when I really got afraid. I never was afraid. I never thought about

anything like that. But he finally went off ‘cause they finally drifted away.

R: Yeah. So for you, obviously you seem to have no violence in you, no anger in

you.

T: Oh, no. I was disappointed in the community because I always said I would

watch it on T.V. when it’s in Selma and all those different places. I said, nothing

like that’ll ever happen in St. Augustine, because the community seemed to have

been just that close and knitted together, until it did happen. That’s when the

vicious and the meanness in the others came out of it. It did something to me for

a long time.


R: Cause you thought you were in a nice community. You thought that the people

who you talked to and saw daily, that they were good people.

T: They were good people. I didn’t know they had that much vicious in ‘em. I didn’t

know they were that nasty, mean. I didn’t know they hated us that much.

R: Right. Now I have heard from the other side—I don’t have any of them on tape

yet, but I’ve asked a few of them if I would—I said, well, would you mind talking

to me about what it was like in June of 1964? These two people, neither of ‘em

know each other. Neither of ‘em could have coordinated their answers, but what

they both ended up saying to me was, Carol, we were okay. We all got along.

There wasn’t a problem until the people came from outside. When I heard the

first person say that I thought, well, they were just having a blind eye to it. They

didn’t want to see it that way.

T: Well, it was getting to the point that the local couldn’t handle it. It was getting to

that point, and then Klan start moving in.

R: So were the Klan from outside also?

T: Right.

R: Oh. So you didn’t really have a Klan presence here before then that you knew

of?

T: That we knew of, no. That’s when it really got—everybody began to notice. Dr.

Hayling and all of them—Dr. Hayling and about, I think it was about four of five of

‘em almost got killed. They called Dr. King in. Dr. King was taking his own time

about coming ‘cause I don’t think he wanted to get involved until after that. Then

it was really an emergency. They needed him and he came in. Then the students


started coming in. But I will say, those students was the most nicest children,

young people, that I have ever met. They was orderly, they was mannerable,

they wasn’t vicious, they wasn’t loud, they wasn’t rude. It was just nice children,

young people.

R: Did they stay in people’s homes?

T: Yes, they stayed in my home.

R: They stayed with you.

T: I think I had about four in my home, and I never saw ‘em. When I get up in the

morning to go to work, they were asleep. But when I came in in the afternoon,

they were gone. When they came in, I was asleep. So I never got—but that room

they was in, it was just as clean as it could be. The towels they used, every day

those towels got washed, dried, and folded up before they left there. I told them, I

said, I don’t know whose children they are. I said, but they was nice children.

R: Did you ever get to talk to any of them again later? I’ll tell you, I’ve spoken with

several of the rabbis, and a few of them would love, would love to thank the

families in whose homes they stayed. Every single one of them has said how

loving and open and giving that the families were in whose homes—evidently,

two rabbis stayed in each of the homes—

T: Right. I know one stayed in Rena Ayre’s home. I forget his name. He loved her.

She was just as sweet—she’s in a nursing home now. There was several homes.

R: There was one rabbi stayed in a home that the person had four children, and he

was sleeping in one of the children’s beds and he said that the mother had taken

the clothes out of the bottom dresser drawer—


T: I’ve heard about that.

R: And the kid was sleeping—

T: In the dresser drawer.

R: Yeah, and this rabbi would love to thank that child.

T: I know. I don’t know who it was.

R: All right. Do you have any memories of times with any of the rabbis, of walking or

seeing or anything?

T: No, because I never got directly involved.

R: And it was best that way, probably.

T: Because I was working with the school system and my husband and my son was

involved, but I was on the outside. I never got involved with all the goings and the

makings and things like that. I was just the stepchild.

R: [Laughter] Did your husband or your son ever get arrested?

T: My son did. My husband never got arrested, never did.

R: Was it just a one-night thing that your son got arrested?

T: No, let me see. My son was in there about two weeks I think. We had to get a

lawyer to get him out because somebody gave him a rusty gun, and he ain’t

never shot a pistol in his life. But it was raining, he had a trench coat, and he had

put it in the pocket of the trench coat. So when he got arrested, quite naturally,

they was gonna take the trench coat. So that’s why he got arrested, of course: he

had the old gun. The thing wouldn’t even shoot. [Laughter] But he did. But it was

something.


R: Yeah. Do you feel good about your part in—I mean, the Civil Rights Act did end

up passing in part—

T: I’m still with the Movement. I’m the vice-president of ACCORD. So I’m still

moving in that direction.

R: Mmhm. Now, what position is Gwendolyn? Is she the president?

T: She’s the past president.

R: Past president. Because she was involved with some of the rabbis. A few rabbis

came in 2007.

T: Right, because we started the Movement with the election, and she got in it. She

was just a child during that time, but when they started the Movement, she got

interested in it. She and Gerry Eubank and a bunch of ‘em started it up along

with David Nolan, and what’s that lady’s name? Twine. She passed, that’s when

they felt that they should do something about keeping it alive. They organized

and everything was going fine until the devil got busy. Let’s see. You might pull it

out. Well, he was the president. He got very nasty with us, so I told—I said, don’t

worry about what he’s saying. I said, we’re not going to stoop to his dirtiness. I

says, let him go and do and say anything he want to say. I said, ‘cause if he do,

I’m not gonna have a part of it. I said I’m not gonna do that. I said, because I feel

that if we do what we supposed to do and do it the right way and put the Lord

ahead of it, I said, everything will be fine. And we have been going on ever since.

Still going. Beautiful.

R: So who’s the president now of ACCORD?

T: Gwendolyn’s oldest daughter.


R: Do you know her name or her first name? Well, I could find out.

T: Donna.

R: Okay, that’s okay. Gwendolyn’s daughter. Because I had left a message for

Gwendolyn just because one of the rabbis who saw her in 2007 said, oh, is she

going to be around? So I wanted to be sure to speak with her.

T: Right, right. Call her. You have her number?

R: I don’t, but—

T: Let me see if I have it. I don’t have my book.

R: I’m sure I can get it.

T: Oh, sure. I’ll tell you what: later on today, call me and I’ll give you her number.

R: Perfect, perfect. Because, yeah. Supposedly Barbara Allen is doing a little

research for us on—

T: Yes, well she was heavy in the Movement, too.

R: I don’t have her number, either. She has my number, but I haven’t heard from her

yet. Evidently she asked Pastor Rawls recently. He said, ‘cause I saw her at the

SCLC dinner. We went to the SCLC dinner in Jacksonville. So she said, well

now—so she’s been checking some stuff, but I didn’t have a way to call her. So

Ron told me to call her, but I just need to get her phone number, too.

T: I don’t have her number.

R: Okay.

T: But I believe it’s in the book.

R: You think it is?

T: Yeah, I think it’s in the book.


R: Under her name? Under Bardal?

T: No, it would be Barbara Allen.

R: Okay.

T: It would be Barbara Allen.

R: Okay. So back to the menu, now, the only thing that makes it authentic for

Martin’s menu then, really, is the iced tea. [Laughter]

T: Almost.

R: Right, I mean, from listening to you talk about what he ate and what you cooked

for him and all that—It doesn’t matter.

T: No, it doesn’t.

R: It doesn’t matter.

T: It really doesn’t.

R: What is authentic is that you are the person in whose home he stayed.

T: Right, Mmhm.

R: And like I said, I know that you told me you don’t want to stand up and talk, but

I’m hoping that we can introduce you and you can wave to the crowd. Yeah,

right! [Laughter]

T: No, I had did it for several of the schools, but I had to stop because it was just too

much for me.

R: Yeah.

T: I was crying, the children was crying, I said, no. I’m not doing this anymore. Don’t

call me, don’t ask me, don’t bother me.

R: Yeah, well we have to know our own limits.


T: Right, and I think it’s something that is heavy with me, and I haven’t been able to

express it. I haven’t been able to get it out like I guess I should, and it just hangs

there.

R: Now what is heavy?

T: The Movement.

R: Still.

T: It still—I just can’t talk about it. I sure can’t. I saw so much, and I could hear

those children screaming coming back, I could see ‘em with the blood run up. I

just can’t do it. I’m sorry.

R: I certainly understand, and when we started to talk about doing this thing, we

started last July to talk about doing this. I made an assumption that things were

way different, ‘cause it’s fifty years later, and I found out certainly there are some

things that are different. That’s good. But there’s a lot less different than—

T: Yeah, it sure is. Sure is.

R: You know? And I’m sure I’m wondering if you wouldn’t be feeling so heavy if I

was right in the first place, if things really had changed enough that you could

say, okay, I can let this go now. I don’t need to—

[Interruption in interview]

R: Now, were you here then in 1964?

B: No.

R: No, okay. Neither was I. Neither was I.

B: Nope.


R: But what we’re remembering is, there were sixteen Reformed rabbis who came

because Martin Luther King asked one of—he was friends with one of the rabbis

and he said, we got trouble down here and he was afraid that the violence was

going to be bad, and then the Civil Rights Act wouldn’t pass. So he asked, he

said, hey, can you get some of your rabbi friends to come down here and support

the nonviolent movement? So I don’t have the whole story now, but so there

were seventeen of them: sixteen rabbis and one administrator, and the part that

I’ve been so far is that they did whatever they were told to do.

B: That’s right.

R: So J.T. Johnson and Dr. King and some other people—

B: This is a walking history person. [Laughter] She got a sign in her yard.

T: Yeah.

[Laughter]

R: Yeah, I know you got a stake there. And maybe we can get a picture of you with

the—or is that on file somewhere? Is there a picture of you in front of your house

with the stake? Can we do that sometime? Not today. I didn’t bring my camera.

Can we do that? You don’t have to say—you can wave! Ha ha! [Laughter]

B: Just smile.

R: You can smile.


R: I can see you got embarrassed already just talking about it.

B: She says, ah, no, I’m not doing that.

R: Right.


[Laughter]

R: This is historic!

B: Yes it is.

R: This is historic, and these men—it was important to them to come. They stayed

here in Lincolnville. I mean, it wasn’t called Lincolnville at the time. But they

stayed here with the families. They said they were the most loving, open,

generous people. One question I have for either of you, okay?


R: So one of the rabbis said that after they got back from jail that they went to

whichever house they were staying at, and they were hungry because they had

been in jail all night, they had offered them baby food.

T: That’s right.

R: Because this one rabbi who’s telling me the story said that he decided that he

would rather eat nothing than eat baby food. He wasn’t going to demean himself

that way, so he just refused to eat the baby food. They were really hungry. So

they walked down the street, in his words, to a diner, and I’m wondering—it had

to be here in Lincolnville.

T: Mmhm. It was one on Washington Street, and I believe it was the one right in

front of the church ‘cause that was the last restaurant that it was—we feed the

homeless now there.

R: Oh, I know that.

T: And I think at that time—what was his name? Mm. What was his name? He ran

it, and I think that’s where it was.


R: So here’s the rest of the story that I was told. So the two of them walked in and

there was someone behind the counter. So they went up and the police had

taken their money and stuff, but they had put a little bit of coins in their shoes and

everything. So they asked and he told them how much a hamburger was. So

they got all their pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters and they realized they had

enough money for one hamburger. So they told the man that they would order

one hamburger and they decided they would split the hamburger. Well,

somebody either was in the restaurant at the time or just walked in—I gotta listen

to that again—saw them, said to the man behind the counter, those are our

rabbis!

T: Mmhm, Mmhm.

R: They made them sit down. He said he had the best fried chicken.

T: [Laughter]

R: He has ever had before or since.

T: Well, bless his heart.

R: In his whole life. And he said, and they kept feeding us and they wouldn’t let us

pay a penny.

T: I think that’s the place it was.

R: Yeah.

T: I really do.

R: If you can figure out who the name of that person was, if there’s any kin to them

even if that person’s not here, at some point—

T: Right, right.


R: We’ve got a month and half before this event.

T: Right, uh-huh.

R: But if you—

T: I will check around and see who got what. But, I believe that’s what it was. It was

on Washington Street.

R: Yeah, and it couldn’t have been too far ‘cause they were just—

T: No, it had to be in here somewhere.

R: Right.

T: And on Washington Street at that time, there was quite a few restaurants. But

this restaurant stayed open later than any of the rest of ‘em because they had

alcohol.

R: Okay. I think this was earlier in the day, though, ‘cause this was after being there

at night—I don’t know what time it was. I could maybe find out. But they brought

‘em back the next day, and so I had a feeling it was daylight, lunchtime. I don’t

know what time it was.

T: Right, could have been, could have been. Yeah.

R: All right, well, it’s just a—I think, I hope that everybody’s gonna enjoy

remembering the good parts.

T: Right, right. I wouldn’t take anything for the experience that I had. I wouldn’t trade

anything for meeting other people and greeting them and being with ‘em and

talking to them and going into the Movement. It’s just something that will live with

you, give you something to live by.

R: Well, I feel very grateful that I’m here with you right now.


T: [Laughter]

R: And that I’ve been talking to these rabbis. I really do. I just feel privileged. I’m

doing a lot of work, too. [Laughter]

T: Right, uh-huh, uh-huh.

R: But this is why it’s worth it to me.

T: Right, right, right. You’re learning, too.

R: I am.

T: Yeah, you’re learning things that’s going on. And everybody got a different story

to tell.

R: Yeah, and that’s what disappoints me sometime. It’s okay if everybody has their

own story! I don’t understand why we have to fight about which is the right story!

T: That’s true, that’s true. Because my experience with him would be different from

the rest of ‘em because he was here in my home.

R: Right. Even when my mother died, the rabbi at that service—and this is in West

Virginia—the rabbi said something I’ve never forgotten, not about my mom but

about life. And what he said was, everyone here knew a different Estelle Gopley.

T: Well all right.

R: Because your relationship is different than your relationship with her and

someone else’s. And everyone knew a different—so you got to know Dr. King in

a way that some people never did.

T: That’s true, that’s true. Because people would ask me, well what kind of man was

he? I said, what you mean what kind of man was he? I said, he was very humble.

I says, he was a humble person and he never got riled about nothing. He never. I


remember when the march on Lincolnville, the Klan’s, here on a Sunday

afternoon. He was there, sitting. He and I was talking at the time. It got quiet: no

cars, no children, no nothing. St. Augustine just [inaudible 31:13] and everything

was shut down. He looked at me, he said, thoughts of what’s happening? I said,

Doc, I don’t know. He said, Mmhm. He got up, he went to the refrigerator, got him

a glass of tea, and came back and he sat in the chair. And I said to him—all at

once they had to close Lincolnville down. You couldn’t come in, you couldn’t go

out. Three limousines came from Riberia side. I was sitting on the porch; they

came and they got to my street and they came up Oneida Street, three of ‘em.

Black skeleton flag on the car. He says, Misses Tyson, what was that? I told ‘em.

He never said a word. He just sat down. Finally, Jose came through the back

door. He said, Doc, we got a problem. He said, what’s wrong? He told them. He

said, there’s a machine gun in every window on Washington Street. He said, who

are they? He said, we don’t know. He said, where did they come from? He said,

we don’t know. He said, how did they get in here? We don’t know. He said,

Mmhm. Dropped his head. He said, it’s gonna be all right. He says, it’s gonna be

all right. They never found out where those limousines came from. They never

found out when those limousines left here. They never found out how those

limousines got in here.

R: Or who was in ‘em.

T: That’s right.


R: Do you think Dr. King—I don’t know the right word to put this—but do you think

like when he would kind of meditate on it and then he said, it’s gonna be all right,

do you think he kinda knew things that some people don’t know?

T: I told ‘em, I said that it was something about him. I said God was using him for a

reason because he always would tell me, he said, I want you to know, he said, I

may die with my shoes on. I said, why would you say that? He said, it’s true. He

said, I’m on a mission for the Lord. He said, anything can happen to me. I leave

my wife and my four little children, he said, but if it have to be, so be it.

R: He was definitely not afraid to die for the cause.

T: It wasn’t to happen here, ‘cause it could have happened. All opportunities was

there, but it wasn’t supposed to happen.

R: Right. Someone was killed somewhere within the few days before the rabbis

came, so on June 17 they came and maybe the night before, someone was

killed?

T: Yeah, and they still don’t know who did it.

R: Do you know who it was who was killed? Do you know the name of who was

killed?

T: I think—I don’t remember the name.

R: Okay.

T: I don’t remember the name of the guy or how it happened, but—

R: I think they were marching is what this one rabbi thought.


T: Right, well, it was and he was in a car, and the car was shot up and a bullet hit

him. It was just a lot of things going on. Me, I would shut it out. I didn’t want to

know now, just went into it.

R: Well but also, your husband and your son are out there.

T: Right.

R: So you really don’t want to know—you knew they had to do what they had to do,

but you didn’t really want to know any of those details.

T: No, I didn’t. And the doctor told my husband, he said, don’t tell her about it. He

said, if she sees something, okay. But he said, don’t sit down and discuss that

with her. He says, she can’t take it.

R: This is Dr. Hayling telling your husband or your son?

T: No, no, no—

R: Oh, Dr. King.

T: My physical doctor.

R: Oh, your physical doctor.

T: He was in Jacksonville. He said, keep her out of it. He said, don’t let her go to

any of the meetings. I’ve never been to a mass meeting.

R: But your doctor knew you and that was probably very good advice.

T: That’s right.

R: This year on Martin Luther King Day and we marched from the church down to

the—I call it slave market.

T: All right.

R: Do you still call it slave market?


T: Right, right.

R: I mean, they tell us it’s not the right word, but that’s what I call it. And I’m

marching beside a man who’s kind of nice and he comes to this church, so I don’t

remember his name, but we exchanged names at the time. He’s kind of a tall

man and he’s probably only about thirty-seven years old or something.

T: James Allen?

R: Yeah, yeah, that’s it. So I’m walking beside him and he’s got this cute little girl

that he’s holding her hand. If I remember it right, what he told me was that when

he was a kid, his momma told him, “If you get arrested, I’m gonna—!” I don’t

remember what she threatened him with. So he knew that he couldn’t get

arrested. But what he did, he became a runner.

T: Right.

R: So he would be down there and if kids were arrested then he would come run

back here and tell everybody what happened.

T: [Laughter]

R: So he was a runner. But he wanted her to see. He wanted her to have some

feeling about the history—

T: What it was all about.

R: What it was all about. I think that this is an opportunity with these rabbis, with

you, with other people like Rena. Is that her name?

T: Rena Ayres.

R: Rena, yeah. I know they take some things from her.

T: Yeah, Janie Price is another one. And Barbara Vickers, she was in on it, too.


R: Yes, and I saw Barbara up at the SCLC dinner, and I asked her if I could call her

and she did say yes. So, yeah. This is very important history in the United States,

and it’s not done yet. That’s the sad thing.

T: Sure is not.

R: It’s not done.

T: It’s not done yet.

R: It’s not done.

T: We as an Americans— we forget from whence we came. I told ‘em, I said, when

they took prayer out of schools, I said that was the lowest blow they could give

the Lord, ‘cause this country was founded on prayer.

R: I understand everybody’s right to pray the way they want, but to say that there’s

no—I mean, even if there is a moment of silence where you could pray the way

you—

T: Want to pray.

R: Yeah. Respect, respect for—

T: But about all this same-sex marriage and all this stuff that’s coming in here. God

ain’t pleased with it. I said, I remember the time when you said America, I said,

everybody stop. You were somebody. [inaudible 39:52]

R: Well in my opinion that’s ‘cause we sometimes talk big and don’t back it up with

any real value. I mean, we say that we are a democracy, but what’s going on in

our government is to me so far away from democracy—

T: Democracy ‘til it ain’t even funny.

R: No.


T: We talk about one another, and I told ‘em, I said, I’ve never in my whole life

spoke with the people in Congress disrespect their president.

R: And their fellow senators and congressmen also.

T: Right. So I said, but you know, I guess you look at it this way: he’s so intelligent,

and they can’t get him riled up to stoop to their level. So they hate him.

R: Right. Right.

T: I said that’s all it is. I say, it’s because of the color of his skin and his attitude. I

said, and he’s just as calm and cool and collected as he ought to be. He goes on

and do what he have to do. They don’t want changes under him, ‘cause they

don’t want changes under him.

R: Right. That’s very sad.

T: I said, it’s sad.

R: It’s very said.

T: I said, and we’re losing our people. We are. As far as morals, we didn’t have

anymore. We don’t have morals anymore.

R: I assume that you have heard or met Dr. Vivian. Have you met Dr. Vivian?

T: Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

R: What a sweetheart of a man.

T: Yes, he was.

R: And what a powerful but quiet, this little voice. But at the SCLC dinner—

T: Right.

R: You could’ve heard a pin drop.

T: That’s right.


R: At times when he would be thinking of the next thing he was gonna say and then

he’d say it. Everybody’d be listening because it was beautiful. He is so smart and

he knows his facts, but he doesn’t like try to beat it into anybody. I don’t know. He

is probably the best speaker I’ve ever seen.

T: He was something else.

R: Yeah, and I’ve got a picture of me talking to him. Somebody took the picture. I’ll

have to show it to you. And I’m like looking up at him. He’s leaning over a little bit

and I’m looking up, and I don’t remember what he was saying, but the smile on

my face, it was good!

[Laughter]

R: Because this man, he like Dr. King and like many others, he could see beyond

the little picture.

T: Mmhm. Mmhm.

R: And what the speech that he gave, he didn’t talk about the civil rights per se. He

talked about people treating people—

T: He’s so right.

R: It doesn’t matter whether you’re Black, White, yellow, or green.

T: It didn’t make no difference. [inaudible 43:27]

R: And he talked about democracy and he said he was afraid that we don’t have a

democracy and that we need to fight for being democratic.

T: But that’s the same. That’s it.

R: It’s scary.

T: It is. It is scary.


R: I don’t want to keep you all afternoon.

T: Oh, Lord!

R: Is it time to—I don’t know. It’s up to you. I just don’t wanna keep you beyond—

T: Woo, it’s two o’clock!

R: Is it two o’clock?

T: Mmhm.

R: Well, listen, when do I need to let you know how many people are coming to

lunch? How long before?

T: I would say about a week.

R: Okay. So I’ll try to—I’m gonna write down a week and a half. [Laughter] Okay.

Ten days before is when I’m going to give the number of people, and I’ll even try

to give you a better estimate a few weeks before that to say, you know, we think

there’s gonna be fifty people or thirty people.

T: Sure, sure.

R: Now, Pastor Ron told me I think up to seventy-five, is that right?

T: Mmhm.

R: You can handle that?

T: Oh, sure.

R: Oh, sure, okay.

T: Well, at least a hundred people.

R: Okay, all right. Wouldn’t it be nice if we did that?

T: Yes, it would. And you never know.

R: Yeah, right, we don’t.


T: You never know.

R: We don’t. There’s a fellow from the Times-Union who called me a few days ago.

T: But yeah, if put half of a hundred, you’re safe. You’re safe because if your crowd

get heavier than you think it is, instead of letting them serve themselves, we can

serve the plates ourselves and pass ‘em to them. You can control the amount

you put on a plate.

R: Right, and certainly for these rabbis—and we can supply the people if you want. I

don’t mean that you need to do it.

T: Right, uh-huh.

R: But if we have it set up that you’re supposed to go get your plates, I would want

to have whoever, our people, whoever ask the rabbis what they want.

T: Right.

R: ‘Cause there’s one of ‘em who has Parkinson’s, you know?

T: Uh-huh.

R: One of them who uses a walker, and so there’s a few—

T: Oh, we can arrange that.

R: Yeah, yeah. How big are the tables?

T: Oh, they are long tables darling.

R: Long tables, okay. Okay.

T: You can get eight people sit at a table.

R: I’m thinking that if there are—say if there were eight rabbis, if they didn’t mind,

put one at each table and then—

T: That would be fine.


R: People can sit.

T: Sit and communicate. That would be beautiful.

R: Yeah, and we’re gonna have a reading of the letter, this— I didn’t bring it with

me.

T: Don’t worry about it.

R: Okay. This letter they wrote, they were in jail that night in the St. Johns County

jail. One of the rabbis said to the one who they respected the most—Rabbi

Borowitz was the one that they all looked to. Like people looked to Dr. King, they

all looked to Rabbi Borowitz. And one of them said, you know, we’re all here. He

says, I think that you should write a letter—‘cause he was a good writer. I think

you should write something about why we came here. And he said, I think you

should ask each one of us separately why we came. So I’ll give it to you. I’ve got

one in the car.

T: Bless his heart.

R: This beautiful letter, absolutely beautiful letter. It’s called “Why We Went” ‘cause

they were up at a rabbi conference in New Jersey—

T: Right.

R: —when Dr. King sent a telegram to Rabbi Dresner.

T: Aw, isn’t that wonderful?

R: And then they announced it there, and then they decided, okay. So seventeen of

them decided to come. So there’s a thing on “Why We Went” and it is a beautiful

statement for equality.

T: Bless his heart. We should have a letter like that and put it in the church archive.


R: Oh, we could do that.

T: I’d like to see it in there.

R: Because a copy of it right now is in the St. Augustine Visitor Center in the civil

rights—

T: Right.

R: Have you seen the civil rights exhibit there?

T: I haven’t been up there yet.

R: Yeah. It’s good until June 15. If you want to be there at quarter to four—like you

have the lunch, the lunch is at 12:30 on Wednesday—at 3:30, quarter to four,

we’re gonna have the rabbis there at the visitor center.

T: Oh, I’ll probably go to that.

R: Yeah, and be sure you let me know that you’re there.


R: [Laughter] I’ve gotten her to agree that she will have, she’ll stand up and wave.

U: Okay, she’ll do that.

R: And I was hoping maybe sometime just she and I can go get a picture of her in

front of the plaque at her house just because—see, someone’s gonna make a

documentary. It is right that you are in that, and so if it’s just—he can take the still

shot and just have it in there. I don’t know how he’ll do it.

T: [Laughter]

R: I don’t even know the man. But we want all the stories, and that’s why I really

hope that we get to talk to a few people who were either—in whose homes they


stayed or the kids in whose homes they stayed or people who marched down the

street.

T: That’s right. That’s true.

R: One of the rabbis told me that he was the first one in line. Dr. King told ‘em all to

get in two: two, two, two, two, two. So he happened to be at the front of the line,

and he was with this tall, thin, young Black girl. We don’t know her name. He

doesn’t know her name. And they’re walking down the street, and they both

decided that they were scared. So I mean, they’re talking to each other. One of

the other rabbis was walking with an older woman. And he called her older—

now, they were in their twenties at the time, okay?

T: Right, right, right.

R: So he’s walking with an older woman, and she says, you know, I am scared. He

said, well, you know, I am also.

T: [Laughter]

R: So they held hands and they walked down the street.

T: Bless their hearts.

R: And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get a few people who remember that?

T: That’s true.

R: I mean, I’m hoping the St. John’s County police welcome them this time instead

of arrest them.

T: Well I think so.

R: Oh, it will.

T: I think a lot of it has—and the older ones are gone now.


R: Yeah.

T: And the younger generation, they want the better. They don’t want to be labeled

with that.

R: Yeah, yeah. Right.

[End of interview]

Transcribed by: Jessica Taylor June 11, 2015

Audit edited by: Holland Hall, June 1, 2017

Final edit by: Ryan Morini, February 24, 2019

Documents

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