Interview with Ernest Green

Green, Ernest G. (Ernest Gideon), 1941- ; McKiernan, Stephen

Ernest Green is a consultant, investment executive, and Civil Rights Leader. Green was one of the first black students to integrate at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, following the Supreme Court 1954 ruling to desegregate. Green graduated with a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Sociology from Michigan State University.

2011-03-03

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

109:21

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Ernest Green
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 3 March 2011
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(Start of Interview)

SM (00:00:03):
Testing one, two-

EG (00:00:18):
A downtown department store. And it was one of those hot days in Little Rock in the summer. And I went to the water fountain. I went to the water fountain for whites rather than the one for blacks. And I think the one for blacks was in the basement of the building and all of that. And I always thought of the person who admonished me for drinking out of the white water fountain seemed like a giant ogre who came out of the sky, removed me from the water fountain. It was the drinking of the water fountain that my first indication that there was something different between black and white folks. And about... Hang on a minute please.

SM (00:01:25):
Mm-hmm.

EG (00:01:25):
So that really was my first indication of being black in the South and during the 1940s and early 1950s.

SM (00:01:34):
How old were you when that experience happened?

EG (00:01:43):
I think I was six or seven years old.

SM (00:01:43):
Wow. When you had that experience, did you go home with your mom and did you have to talk? Did you have a discussion with her about what was going on because you were so young?

EG (00:01:53):
Well, I think at the time there was probably some attempt to rationalize it, but it did not make sense then or now. And that is one of those things that sticks with you, that there is a feeling of being unfair and that somehow, we had to change it. That is probably what I thought at that point in time, that this was something that did not make sense and a series of adult decisions that I would change if I were in charge.

SM (00:02:38):
Who were your greatest influences through your high school? This is before you went to Little Rock now for your senior year. Who were your greatest influences through your schooling up to that point? And secondly, give me some background information on your family, your grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters during that time frame.

EG (00:02:59):
Well, the greatest influences would be my mother, my aunt, my grandfather. My dad passed when I was 13. And my mother and aunt were school teachers. My aunt was the dean of girls at the local high school. My mother taught home economics at the high school. And then she stopped teaching when my brother and I were born, and she went back to teaching after about, I think three years after my brother was three years old as an elementary school teacher in the Little Rock school system. But she and my aunt taught school for over 40 years in the Little Rock system.

SM (00:04:02):
Did they teach in segregated schools or inte-

EG (00:04:04):
They taught in segregated schools. And they really were. But my grandfather was a retired letter carrier. They all were my biggest influences in high school, Horace Mann, which was the segregated high school. And there were teachers along the way since black school teachers were a fairly small lot, they all knew each other. And my mother and aunt it turned out were part of a group of teachers that supported a court case. There was a black teacher who challenged the school board on equal pay between white and black teachers. And that was in the 1940s when I was very young. But during that challenge, my mother and a group of the other teachers helped support the teacher who was bringing the court suit because she was fired immediately when she put the court suit forward. Obviously, once she was fired from teaching, she had no way of supporting herself while the case was going through litigation. So they were part of a group of teachers that helped provide for her pay and compensation. And since they did not make much money, I am certain that this was a real struggle to try to make certain that she had coverage. But the other part of that was that the lawyer that handled the case for the NAACP was Thurgood Marshall. And he stayed at our house for a number of times. This was before obviously hotels were open. And I was always amazed that my mother as a school teacher was able or willing to step forward and played this kind of role. Because you would not consider her a revolutionist. But she was one quietly in her own way and was an advocate for change.

SM (00:07:06):
When Thurgood was down there in the South, was Jack Greenberg with him? Because he traveled with them a lot?

EG (00:07:12):
I do not think, as far as I know, I do not think Greenberg was traveling with him.

SM (00:07:19):
Right.

EG (00:07:20):
But the more I read, the school equity cases were really forerunners for many of the school desegregation.

SM (00:07:33):
Yes. Wow. What an experience having Thurgood there at your home. In my readings, education was a very important in your family, it is very obvious from the experiences of your being teachers and so forth and the emphasis on education. And obviously they had a strong sense for what was right and wrong in our society, particularly in the South, which all played an important role in your courageous effort to attend Little Rock High School. Was that all a part of it? The reason why you-

EG (00:08:10):
Well, I mean, it was always my choice. I came home in the spring of (19)57 when the school board announced they were going to accept transfer students from Horace Mann to Central. And I wanted to apply and be considered to transfer. And I did not pay a lot of attention to the selection process of how the school board went through it. I mean, it is still to this day it is somewhat of a mystery to me. Obviously, they paid attention to their grades and I am sure some background and all of that and participation in events in school. But after they did all that, they would not allow us, the black students, to participate in any of the extracurricular activity. I am not sure why they chose people who were involved in the school and then turn around and block all of that.

SM (00:09:32):
So when you got to Little Rock, you just went to classes basically?

EG (00:09:36):
Well, as it turned out, that is all you could do.

SM (00:09:38):
You could not play sports, join the band, the chorus or any of those?

EG (00:09:42):
The band, the choir, sports you could not do anything. You had to just attend the classes. And I suppose this was their punishment for if you were going to be there, they were going to make it not the world's most pleasant situation. But the other thing, or one other fact about my mother. My mother received her masters from the University of Arkansas. They had a program that they ran on the weekends, a satellite affair in Little Rock. I think this was a response to a requirement to open up the university. And probably the expense side of having people to go all the way up to Fayetteville from Little Rock, which was quite a jaunt. And if they were working as teachers, that would have been quite difficult. But anyway, she received her master's from the University of Arkansas. And I do not know whether indirectly or directly they advised her or not to come up to the campus for the ceremony that they were not inviting she and the other black teachers that participated in this. Anyway-

SM (00:11:13):
What year was this?

EG (00:11:14):
This would be 1951.

SM (00:11:16):
Oh my gosh.

EG (00:11:17):
And it turned out that when they had sent her-her diploma, she was very upset about it and threw the letter in the trash that indicated that they would prefer her not coming to the campus. Did not invite her. Anyway, long story short, my sister has been following this for the last 60 years. And she wrote the Chancellor at the university this year. And the university is going to do a special commendation of my mother's diploma at graduation this spring.

SM (00:12:05):
Wow. That is, wow.

EG (00:12:06):
And we are all going up to participate in it and receive her diploma 60 years later as the member of the class of 1951.

SM (00:12:22):
Yeah. Just from hearing your voice, you must be so proud of your mom.

EG (00:12:26):
Oh yeah.

SM (00:12:28):
Oh my gosh. And you got to be proud of your sister for the persistence in doing this.

EG (00:12:34):
I am very-very proud of my sister and my mother. This was quite an achievement and the fact that she stayed with it for all this time. And then secondly, recognition. And I am sure this will be while they will be recognizing my mother, it will be recognizing a whole series of other teachers and graduate students who did not get there too.

SM (00:13:02):
You know what, Ernie, this will be an interesting parallel here. It would be nice if President Obama would come, just come unannounced just like Dr. King came unannounced to your graduation and just with no fanfare, just sat with a family. Would not that be nice?

EG (00:13:20):
Well, we-

SM (00:13:23):
I know it was a little more with the President, but still, I mean.

EG (00:13:24):
That would be a great touch. But he travels with a few people.

SM (00:13:38):
I know. That would shock them. I am going to get the into that, but could you explain a little bit more about the schooling prior to Little Rock? Because I know you were in what, Horace Mann school and then you were in another school for a while.

EG (00:13:50):
Well, there were two schools. Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School was the black High School in Little Rock for a very long time. And then right after the (19)54 decision, the Little Rock School Board built a new high school, Horace Mann. I say tongue in cheek, but it is probably true that there were more new schools built for black people in the South after the Brown decision than at any point in time in the history of this country. And all of it was done to try to thwart, I am sure black interest in going to the formally all white schools. But Horace Mann and Dunbar were regarded as premier high schools. And in many ways, I always said it was the quality of the teachers that these two institutions had. And coming out of a family of teachers, you had an opportunity to recognize exceptional teachers. In fact, now there is this one course that I took my 11th year at Horace Mann. It was Negro History at that time. And it was Carter G. Wilson's book that we studied. And the teacher who taught the course, I always said that Little Rock School Board had no idea what this woman was teaching us. But we studied slave insurrections and the protest movement, the beginning of the NAACP and all of a series of things that taught me that the black community was challenging this old system a long time. It was not something that was being accepted. And it may have helped reinforce in my mind that challenging the court decision was an important piece.

SM (00:16:28):
Yeah. Learning about probably Walter White-

EG (00:16:31):
And Roy Wilson.

SM (00:16:33):
...learning about W.B. Royce and-

EG (00:16:33):
Right.

SM (00:16:35):
...and Marcus Garvey and a lot of different people.

EG (00:16:38):
Yeah. We had quite an array of individuals that we spent time having to know about.

SM (00:16:52):
Three events that made national news before you went to Little Rock in (19)57 really were major events in the nation at this particular time. I have interviewed some people up from the media and the media portrays things when they were popular. When they are not, they kind of hide them. But certainly the Brown versus Board of Education decision of (19)54, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of (19)57, and then of course the Emmett Till murder, I believe that was (19)56. Those three events were major. Did they have an influence on you?

EG (00:17:27):
Absolutely [inaudible].

SM (00:17:30):
All three of them in terms of wanting to go to Little Rock?

EG (00:17:34):
Well, the Brown decision, I was 12, 13 when that was handed down and as I am junior high school. I paid attention to it because the local newspaper had huge, bold headlines that I had never seen any that big. And they said that this was going to change the Old South. And I thought, well, the Old South was not for me. And I was ready for a change. And if this was one of the things that was going to change it, I am in favor of the decision. And then the Till murder, I was impacted by the picture that appeared in Jet Magazine of the disfigured body. And then just the recounting of how he had been treated and mangled and thrown in the river with the weights and all of that. And then the Montgomery Bus Boycott, I was a bit older and I was just really impressed by the fact that these individuals in Montgomery could take on the whole structure with an alternative transportation system. I knew who Rosa Parks was and I was beginning to pay attention to Dr. King. But the main thing about the Montgomery Bus Boycott that struck me was that ordinary citizens in Montgomery had decided to band together to create this alternative transportation as long as it was segregated. And I just connected with that because the rule in Little Rock was that if the bus became crowded and black people had to get up and move further to the back to give up their seat to someone white. And I just, that did not make sense then. It does not make sense now for me. And I thought that the Montgomery response was what we needed to have happen throughout the entire South.

SM (00:20:06):
What is interesting is when you look at the history of the church in Montgomery, where Dr. King took over after Pastor Johns left. When Pastor Johns was kind of pressured to leave because they thought he was kind of a rabble rouser. And then Dr. King comes in and within a short period of time, he is thrust into activism as well. You probably remember the scene in the movie where Dr. King finally, there is a movie made of this where Dr. King finally makes some comments in the church and the eyes were rolling around, "Oh, no. Not again."

EG (00:20:40):
No. Well, maybe part of that was knowing the level of conservatism by some people in Little Rock if that were to happen. That they would be quite upset or felt that you were rocking the boat and that this was a challenge that they did not need.

SM (00:21:09):
I know the NAACP was responsible for picking the nine students for Little Rock. And I know you are still, you mentioned earlier that there is still a question of understanding how this came about. But from my readings, is that your grades were excellent and that was definitely a criteria. And also the fact that school attendance was very important. Those were two criteria that were used in picking the nine students. The question I am asking is how did the NAACP approach your parents on this?

EG (00:21:43):
Well, I think it is a slight misnomer. There were more than nine that had been approved by the school board. And many of the others decided not to go forward. The number's somewhere around 20, 25 students that were picked. And that the thing that binds the nine of us together is that we all had somebody in our families who supported our desire to go to Central High School. I think most of us saw it as an opportunity to get the best high school education that the city had to offer. That there were more courses, more range of science labs and other things that we did not have at Horace Mann and Dunbar. And for that reason, in the initial students that they had, what the first court suit suing the Little Rock School Board, none of them got picked to participate. We were, I do not know the word self-appointed, but all of us decided individually that we wanted to transfer, wanted to transfer for as I said, a better educational format. And the other portion of that that I think made us all somewhat different was that we each had parent of parents or some adult who thought that the decision we were making was the right decision.

SM (00:23:44):
Yeah. The person you worked with there I believe was Daisy Bates.

EG (00:23:47):
Was Daisy Bates, absolutely.

SM (00:23:48):
Yeah. And I have read her biography quite a few years ago. I have a first edition of her biography, which is actually-

EG (00:23:54):
She was quite a lady. And she and her husband owned the black weekly newspaper, the Arkansas State Press.

SM (00:24:03):
What became of it?

EG (00:24:04):
Not only was she president of NAACP, but she was also publisher and editor of this weekly paper. And it was really the frontal engine that kept up with all of the changes going on in terms of race and race relations.

SM (00:24:30):
I know her life was threatened many times. Did you know any of the other eight before they came to Little Rock? Did you know them?

EG (00:24:39):
Yeah. Well we, let us see. Two of the eight, we went to the same church. Jefferson Thomas lived a half a block from me. I knew Terrence Robert's sister. Yeah, Little Rock was still small enough that, except for me, the students that were going into the 10th grade, I really did not know them because they were in high school.

SM (00:25:12):
Yes.

EG (00:25:14):
Two grades is a world of difference. But we either knew the family, knew a brother or sister, had some relationship so that most of the nine I knew of or knew somebody in that family.

SM (00:25:32):
Well, your career is well known to the nation, and I think Melba has written about her background too. But the other seven, what became of these other individuals? What became of Elizabeth Eckford?

EG (00:25:44):
Well, Elizabeth is living in Little Rock now. She is retired and we were all together just a few weeks ago in Little Rock. Jefferson Thomas, as you may not know, died this past fall. He had been quite ill. Terrence Roberts is a psychology professor. He has written a book. He is retired and doing lecturing. Carlota Walls Lanier has also written a book and she is doing lecturing and she who is in real estate out in Colorado. Minijean Brown-Trickey, is living back in Little Rock, also educator and doing some lecturing. Thelma Mothershed-Wair is in Little Rock and retired teacher. I think I have covered. Gloria Karlmark, Gloria Ray Karlmark is living in Sweden.

SM (00:27:06):
Wow.

EG (00:27:06):
And she has been living over there for 40 years or better. She has family there and she gets back occasionally. She was with us a couple weekends ago down in Little Rock for a special recognition on the part of the Benton Library.

SM (00:27:30):
And how about Melba?

EG (00:27:32):
Melba is a college professor in the bay area in California somewhere near San Francisco. And as you said, has written a book and is doing well.

SM (00:27:51):
During all these years, you have stayed in touch with each other over times? Even when you went off to Michigan State as an undergraduate student, did you often hear from these-

SM (00:28:03):
...State as an undergraduate student, did you often hear from these younger ones what they were still going through in Arkansas?

EG (00:28:08):
We stayed in touch. We have been more in touch in the last 20 years than we were in the beginning because we were all developing our careers, going to college, building families, all of that. But in the last 20 to 30 years, we have had these 10th year anniversaries. We have had creation of this foundation that we have, and we have made an attempt, and with the internet, it is easier to stay in touch as some years ago so we have fairly well-connected.

SM (00:28:56):
Oh, yes. All of you knew the dangers and the potential threats, the possible harm. What were you and your family thinking leading up to the first day of school?

EG (00:29:07):
Well, leading up to the first day of school, I thought that it would be relatively quiet. I mean, until the governor said he was calling out the National Guard, we thought that the desegregation would be reasonably accepted. The reason for that is that Little Rock saw itself as a moderate city. They were very early in the aftermath of the (19)54 decision. The buses had desegregated quietly. The library had accepted Blacks. The med school, the law school had all had a few Black students. So we anticipated that things were going to be fairly quiet.

SM (00:30:02):
What is interesting is when you look at the South at that time, the Democratic Party was in charge of the south.

EG (00:30:09):
I remember it was.

SM (00:30:10):
A lot of things that President Kennedy did early on, even when he was running for president and then when he became president, he was a very pragmatic politician. He did not want to lose the votes in the South, so a lot of the issues linked to President Kennedy and his real interest in helping in the civil rights area is in question because he was a pragmatic politician. The question is whether a lot of the things he did was for moral reasons or political reasons. Do you have any thoughts on that?

EG (00:30:41):
Well, I remember fairly vividly that when I was in college, we always had lots of discussions about where the Kennedys were in terms of civil rights. I think whether it was his heart or the pragmatism of day-to-day politics, I was more interested in the outcome. I believe he was a reluctant participant, but the same could be said about Eisenhower.

SM (00:31:18):
Yes.

EG (00:31:19):
He was also a reluctant participant, but unintended consequences that I think also gave a real shot of energy to the civil rights movement was his sending the troops to Little Rock.

SM (00:31:32):
Yes. September 24th.

EG (00:31:34):
And that made a real big difference. I think for the first time the African American community saw that the government was willing to stand up for what was right. To me, that was a big boost in many of these communities to push the agenda forward.

SM (00:31:57):
I think originally, we were supposed to start school around September 4th.

EG (00:32:00):
Yeah.

SM (00:32:02):
Yeah. And then I think you started it really on September 25th. What was going on in that two weeks? Were you still studying?

EG (00:32:09):
We were studying. We had tutors. We had support. We had interviews, had press and all of that. But the main thing I was interested in keeping up with my classwork because I was the graduating senior of the group, and I wanted to make sure I could graduate that year.

SM (00:32:34):
These next few questions are centered on your experience during that year. Could you describe that year using different anecdotes and stories about everyday life for you and your eight peers?

EG (00:32:48):
Well, you could divide it into two categories. When the troops were there, our life was fairly quiet and minimal problems. There may have been some words passed. But when the troops were pulled out of the school, that is when the level of harassment began to rise. We had physical altercations. Really, it was, I said, akin to go into the battle every day.

SM (00:33:27):
Wow. How long were the troops there to protect all nine of you?

EG (00:33:34):
Well, they were inside the classes until right around Thanksgiving they were removed from inside the classes. So we had pretty much until November that we were able to be on our own.

SM (00:34:06):
How did the principal and the teachers treat you, particularly the white teachers?

EG (00:34:19):
Well, most of the teachers were probably somewhere in a neutral zone trying not to be seen as partisan on either side. Then there were a few who were very supportive and wanted to make certain that we had a positive experience. Then there were a few who were openly hostile to our being there and were not shy about letting us know it.

SM (00:34:54):
Yeah. I read someplace that if any of the nine ever did something wrong, you were severely punished. And if whites did things that were pretty bad, nothing would happen to them, or at least they had to have a witness to their-

EG (00:35:17):
That was an imposition of a rule that the school authorities imposed on us. But I think one was the nine of us figured out how, as well as we could, to survive that year and be protective of each other. So we are a pretty tightly-knit group of people. More importantly, that you tried as best you could to ignore what you could and what you could not, you had to deal with it. So I mean, it was clear that there were more pleasant ways to go to school than what we went through. But for me, for myself, I felt that the satisfaction of leaving there was going to be too great for me to give in, and that if I wanted to punish my tormentors, my best deal was to stick it out and graduate from Central High School.

SM (00:36:31):
Right. Because sometimes it is a lesson of life, if you let people know that you are real upset, you are letting them win.

EG (00:36:40):
That we learned early.

SM (00:36:44):
Also, I am not sure if Daisy tried to do anything with respect to the fact when she found out that you were not allowed to be involved in any activities of any kind. I am a student development person, and I believe that all students should be able to have life not only in the class, but in outside activities. Was there ever any thoughts on the part of the NAACP locally via Daisy Bates to challenge you are not being-

EG (00:37:11):
Well, they challenged that in the beginning, but that was a rule that the school board handed down. I assumed at the time the attitude was, if you do not want this, then we are not going to accept you at as part of the transfer of students.

SM (00:37:29):
Did you make any friends with the white students, and was there pressure on white students that if they became friends with you, that sure they would be pressured?

EG (00:37:38):
Big pressure on them that if they befriended us, that they were going to be ostracized.

SM (00:37:49):
Geez.

EG (00:37:49):
Called nigger lovers. In some cases, their parents' businesses were threatened and all of that. So yeah, I mean, it was a reign of terror that got handed down by the segregationists to try to enforce an attitude of isolation towards us.

SM (00:38:14):
See, I think it is important, a lot of our today's students, both Black and white, do not know our history and assume that the battles that went took place in the (19)40s, (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, that is old history, it does not apply to today. Yet my commentary here is that teenagers have all kinds of pressures in their lives, most try to fit in. But even today, we know that bullying is one of the major issues that is affecting a lot of students in schools because for some reason, because children are children, look at people who are different and they treat them differently. Yet in Little Rock, you had the added dimension of extreme dislike based on race, and you still had all the other things that teenagers were going through.

EG (00:39:01):
Right. Well, I think you are absolutely right. Anyways, all these peer pressures and attempts to keep students from recognizing their full potential, it is an area that we have to continue to fight against.

SM (00:39:27):
I read also in this story when graduation was near, it is my understanding of the principal offered to send you your degree in the mail, too.

EG (00:39:40):
Yeah. Well, that was a non-starter.

SM (00:39:42):
Yeah. Explain that. How he approached you.

EG (00:39:44):
Well, his approach was that I would be happier without having to go through.

SM (00:39:55):
I am losing you.

EG (00:39:56):
Oh. That I would be happier without having to go through the ceremony and that they would mail me my diploma. I just said that was out of the question. I planned to be there for the ceremony and regarded that as an important part of receiving my diploma, so I quickly dismissed that.

SM (00:40:24):
What was it like being at the graduation? I saw a picture on the web of you standing outside, and how some of the other students are out there too, just before your graduation, and-

EG (00:40:37):
Well, for me, it was a great feeling of accomplishment that year that I had not only endured that, but been able to navigate it and that I was getting on with my life to the next step, going on to college. I felt that receiving that diploma I had accomplished something for myself and for other Black youngsters in Little Rock that would come behind me.

SM (00:41:18):
When you went up and the principal handed you your degree, obviously your parents and your supporters were very pleased and clapping, but were there any cat calls? Were there any negative thoughts?

EG (00:41:31):
If there were cat calls, I clearly blocked them out and it did not resonate with me. But my memory was, it was pretty eerie silence except for my immediate family. I felt I did not need a large audience to tell me what I had accomplished, and that I was pretty pleased with myself and felt that this was the first step in moving my life along.

SM (00:42:09):
How many were in your graduating class?

EG (00:42:12):
There was 600-plus graduating.

SM (00:42:12):
That is a big school.

EG (00:42:13):
Yeah. It was a big class. There were a couple of thousand students at Central.

SM (00:42:21):
You mentioned earlier, was there a feeling during the year by you and your peers that you must succeed in the classroom because other young African- Americans were looking to you as role models?

EG (00:42:33):
I think of the nine, there were much stronger students than myself, but education was such a big chunk for each of us, and we were competitive people, so we were going to be achievers in that just because we saw a school as a place where you tried to do as well as you could. And that was our history, whether we were at the Black school or the white school.

SM (00:43:06):
Governor Faubus, every time I have seen him on YouTube, he bugs me. I just do not like him. I never liked him. But just the way he talks, the way he looks, everything. What did that man, what did he symbolize to you?

EG (00:43:26):
Well, he symbolized the old segregationists, and that was what we were changing and driving out. I mean, I did not meet Faubus until later in life, but during that year, I did not have any contact with him.

SM (00:43:48):
Did he ever change?

EG (00:43:48):
Well, he said he did. Yeah. He and Wallace, and a number of the segregationists said they changed. I mean, Faubus came from a very progressive background back. In fact, my mother voted for Faubus when he first ran for governor. He really decided that he was going to play his race card to ensure that he would get reelected I guess.

SM (00:44:20):
When Wallace stood before the schoolhouse door, James Meredith was going in the back way. I mean, it seems so fake because you do things for moral reasons, not for political reasons, and it looks like even Wallace did it for publicity.

EG (00:44:39):
Well, these guys were all politicians extraordinaire.

SM (00:44:43):
Dr. King came to your graduation. What an honor. He sat with your parents. Did you know that he was coming or did he just come unannounced?

EG (00:44:54):
Well, I did not know he was coming. He had been speaking at a college about 45 miles from Little Rock, and he was close. He was in touch with Mrs. Bates. I did not know he was sitting with my family until the end of the ceremony. But it is quite an honor as something that obviously looking back on it, really makes a great exclamation point for my graduation.

SM (00:45:36):
Here you are 18 years old, and you are meeting Dr. King?

EG (00:45:39):
I am 16.

SM (00:45:40):
Oh, you were 16. Well, you graduated very young, but you-

EG (00:45:48):
I turned 17 in September.

SM (00:45:49):
Wow. What did Dr. King say to you and you to him? Did you have a chance to talk?

EG (00:45:57):
I, Steven, have to point out that I was 16, graduating from high school. After we said the pleasantries and said hello to each other, then thank you for coming out, I was more focused on going to my graduation party than recognizing the historic moment of King speaking at my graduation.

SM (00:46:25):
Right. I was wondering what the people that were in that audience must have known it was Dr. King.

EG (00:46:32):
This was early on in Dr. King's career, and that could have been a large number of people who did not know who he was. That was just another Black male there that. It is impossible to think that Martin Luther King could have been anywhere without the world knowing who he was, but this was really before his real ascendancy and into super fame that we know now.

SM (00:47:10):
It is interesting you say that because I interviewed Julius Lester earlier in the week, and Julius was talking about Malcolm X, and he said Malcolm X was not a very well-known person during his life, but after his death-

EG (00:47:24):
In fact, I went to school with Malcolm's brother. He was in college with me, Bob Little, because Malcolm spent part of his time at Lansing, Michigan before he came to New York. We were part of a generation of people that all the luminaries now and all the stardom, they were just ordinary people and did not have the fame and attention that they have now.

SM (00:48:00):
You went off to Michigan State University, which everybody knows is Magic Johnson's University. But the Magic came much later, but-

EG (00:48:11):
He came after I did.

SM (00:48:13):
And Michigan had a great football team too, during Bubba Smith. And I know-

EG (00:48:18):
Bubba was... I was there during the Herb Adderley era.

SM (00:48:23):
Oh, the great football players coming out of there. Hall of Famers.

EG (00:48:27):
Right.

SM (00:48:27):
I think Carl Banks came out of there too. But you went to Michigan State University and received both of your Bachelor's and Master's in (19)62 and (19)64?

EG (00:48:35):
Yes.

SM (00:48:37):
Why did you pick a Big 10 school?

EG (00:48:40):
Well, I got a scholarship to Michigan State, and I suspect that a big part of the reason I got the scholarship hopefully, was because I was an outstanding student, but also the president of Michigan State John Hannah was chairman of Eisenhower's Civil Rights Commission. I believe that had something else to do with it as well. So I mean, it was a great fit for me. It has been a tremendous experience. I have maintained great friendships from that Michigan State experience, and I am a proud Spartan. I bleed green and white.

SM (00:49:27):
Well, I am a Buckeye, so we are adversaries there, Ernie. But in sports, they had great football teams. They had some great basketball teams too. But at this stage in your life, as you are heading off and getting your degree, did you know when you went to Michigan State what you wanted to become?

EG (00:49:50):
No, I was interested in exploring a wide range of opportunities. Well, I thought I was going to maybe become a lawyer. I looked at pre-law as an area, but when I got to State, School of Labor Industrial Relations was something that I paid attention to. I had a series of summer jobs in New York with a number of labor unions. The Ladies Garment Workers Union, and every summer I came back and forth. I ended up working in New York for the summer. So it was the widening of those experiences at Michigan State that really allowed me to figure out some new things.

SM (00:50:49):
You had a lot more freedom there too, because could not get involved in student life at Little Rock but at Michigan State, you can get involved in everything. What was student life like during those six years?

EG (00:51:03):
Well, I was an active student. I was involved in student government. I chaired the campus NAACP for a couple years, the political organization, the Young Dems. So I was pretty active.

SM (00:51:19):
You were in a fraternity too, were not you?

EG (00:51:20):
I was Omega Psi Phi.

SM (00:51:23):
Oh yeah. We got that at Westchester.

EG (00:51:25):
Charter member of the fraternity.

SM (00:51:29):
See if we had known that when you came to Westchester University, we have a process now that anybody who was involved in an African American fraternity is honored.

EG (00:51:41):
Ah, all right. Well-

SM (00:51:42):
And we should have done that when you were here.

EG (00:51:47):
Well, no, in fact, I am going back this fall for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the fraternity.

SM (00:51:55):
Oh my gosh. Where was it founded?

EG (00:52:01):
Well, I mean, the chapter that we had at Michigan State is 50 years. The fraternity itself is 100 years this year. It was founded at Howard University.

SM (00:52:12):
Okay, very good. Were there protests going on during the time you were there? Because you are talking about... I guess the protest really started later on, but that Freedom Summer was happening and yeah.

EG (00:52:27):
Yeah. I mean, my opinion as head of the NAA, we were protesting lunch counters at Kresges and Woolworths and sit in, and then of course a little bit later the Vietnam War.

SM (00:52:47):
Hmm.

EG (00:52:48):
Yeah.

SM (00:52:49):
Did you bring anybody to the university to speak, or what speakers came to your school when you were there?

EG (00:52:55):
Well, one of the speakers that we brought was Malcolm X.

SM (00:52:59):
Oh, wow.

EG (00:53:00):
I was president of the NAACP and the African Students Union, we co-sponsored Malcolm speaking to the university.

SM (00:53:16):
What was the turnout? Pretty big?

EG (00:53:18):
It was huge. It was overflow.

SM (00:53:21):
And what did the president of the university think when he was coming?

EG (00:53:25):
Well, freedom of speech. He may have thought that it was not something he wanted, but he certainly allowed it to occur.

SM (00:53:39):
Yeah. Was he talking about by any means necessary at that time?

EG (00:53:44):
Yes, of course. Yeah.

SM (00:53:44):
And challenging Dr. King, and admired Rustin and the whole thinking of nonviolence.

EG (00:53:52):
No, he was challenging nonviolence and the Civil Rights Movement and a whole series of things.

SM (00:53:58):
Wow. Any other speakers?

EG (00:54:07):
I cannot think of any other national speakers that we had.

SM (00:54:15):
What did you learn from your college years that you did not know from your experience at Little Rock?

EG (00:54:22):
Well, I think the one major thing was the set of relationships and how they have been helpful to me throughout my life, and many of them people that you would not ordinarily have struck up a friendship or a relationship with. I learned from my Michigan State experience to try and be as broad as you could in getting to know people.

SM (00:54:56):
How many African American students were at Michigan State at that time?

EG (00:55:00):
I think between graduate and undergraduate, probably about 300, 350.

SM (00:55:05):
And that is a campus of over 30,000, I think.

EG (00:55:09):
Yeah.

SM (00:55:11):
38 I think it is right now or 40, somewhere around there. Was it a bike campus when you were there?

EG (00:55:17):
To a certain degree. I mean, the weather was so cold. I think bikes were probably one way of getting around. This was before buses and all, because the period of time that I went, they were just trying to figure out how to become student friendly. Most Big 10 campuses had to work at that pretty hard.

SM (00:55:47):
Yeah. I know now that they call the biggest bike campus in America, they have more bikes there than any other college campus. My only experience with Michigan State was when I went there in the summer of (19)71 to visit a friend of one of my...

SM (00:56:03):
... the summer of (19)71 to visit a friend of a friend of one of my graduate school friends from Ohio State, and we were stopped at the entrance because they thought we were coming to create protest. They were very suspicious of us because we had out-of-state license plates. That was back in (19)71.

EG (00:56:16):
Well, they probably had a jaundiced eye about outsiders. Yeah.

SM (00:56:25):
Yeah. Now we are getting into your work life. I know that from (19)68 to (19)77 you worked for the A Philip Randolph Fund. What did the work entail, and was this the time that you really got to know A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin?

EG (00:56:42):
This was. This was the time of the apprenticeship program that I was the director of and had an opportunity to work with Bayard and to work with Mr. Randolph.

SM (00:57:06):
Now...

EG (00:57:06):
Well, this was also the effort on the part of the Randolph Institute to [inaudible] young African Americans into the Building Trades apprenticeship program.

SM (00:57:21):
And for a pretty young person, you were given some heavy responsibility then?

EG (00:57:26):
Yes. Well, and Bayard and Mr. Randolph encouraged that. They were big supporters of making certain that we had an opportunity to show our talent, show what we could do.

SM (00:57:45):
What is interesting is you remember this, Ernie, from the conference we had 10, going on 11 years ago now, I cannot believe. But one of the things that came out of it is the influence that Bayard Rustin had on so many young people in terms of being a role model, a mentor, and a believer. And I can remember someone at the conference saying that they once sat down, and they could come up with about 2,500 names of people that had been influenced by Bayard Rustin. He somehow really attracted people, did not he, with his ability to delegate and have faith in young people.

EG (00:58:23):
Yeah. No question about it. He was superb at that.

SM (00:58:28):
What was the relationship between Bayard Rustin and A Philip Randolph? Because I have always perceived that he kind of looked at his Randolph as a father figure almost.

EG (00:58:36):
Well, it was, that Mr. Randolph was someone that Bayard was... I am not aware of the full relationship, but that he admired Mr. Randolph immensely, and not only a father figure but probably closer to deity as you could get.

SM (00:59:05):
When you look at these two figures that I think need... Obviously, in Westchester now, there is greater recognition because the high school... I remember I kept you up to date on that.

EG (00:59:15):
Right.

SM (00:59:16):
And they got to make sure here... We got to always watch the school board here because there is always the possibility they may try to change it again. You cannot trust anybody here. But when you look at A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, what were the qualities that they possessed? These are things that I look at in leadership of, intelligence.

EG (00:59:35):
Well, I think the major quality was that these really are individuals who could see the future, and whether it was the protest activity, the Freedom Rides that Bayard did in the (19)40s, the first proposed March on Washington that Randolph had, going back to World War II.

SM (01:00:00):
(19)41, yep.

EG (01:00:00):
Yeah. The other marches and protests that they had before the (19)63 march. These are people who really could have a vision of who we are in a few years.

SM (01:00:18):
Could you hold that right there? I have to switch my tape here. Hold on one second. How is the weather down there?

EG (01:00:25):
... problem. I am going to have to-

SM (01:00:25):
I guess we will-

EG (01:00:25):
I am going to have to leave in about five minutes.

SM (01:00:32):
Oh really? I got 30 more minutes, here. Oh, boy.

EG (01:00:35):
Can we call back? Can I call you-

SM (01:00:38):
Yes.

EG (01:00:39):
... later on tonight or tomorrow?

SM (01:00:41):
Yep, sure thing. Yep. We can do it later tonight. I will get up a couple more questions in here, then we can finish it tonight.

EG (01:00:47):
Okay. Why do not we do that? And I can reach you on the (610) 436...

SM (01:00:51):
9364.

EG (01:00:53):
93, okay.

SM (01:00:57):
Do you want to stop now or just...

EG (01:00:58):
Yeah. I think this would be a good time for me to break, and then I will call you back. We will finish up this evening.

SM (01:01:06):
What time do you want to call? 8:00?

EG (01:01:13):
How is 8:30?

SM (01:01:13):
8:30s fine.

EG (01:01:15):
Okay.

SM (01:01:16):
Thanks.

EG (01:01:17):
I will call you at 8:30.

SM (01:01:17):
Yep. Thanks, Ernie. Bye.

EG (01:01:18):
Thanks, bye.

SM (01:01:22):
Thanks for calling me back. The last question we were talking about was your impressions of A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. The March on Washington in 1963 took place when you were at Michigan State. Did you go to that event?

EG (01:01:40):
I did, and I drove all night, drove from Lansing to Washington. And we arrived the morning of the march, and I was with two other people. I was just out there among the 200,000 people participating in it. But I was at the march.

SM (01:02:09):
How close were you? Were you down by the... near the line?

EG (01:02:15):
I was by the Reflecting Pool, pretty far away from the...

SM (01:02:18):
Steps.

EG (01:02:19):
Yeah, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, but yeah, close enough to be in the middle of... to have said that I was there.

SM (01:02:36):
That was such a historic event. During those years when you worked for Mr. Rustin and Mr. Randolph, did they often talk about that march because you were...

EG (01:02:48):
Well, Bayard did not spend a lot of time talking about it. I mean obviously, people around him... I had a chance to work with Rachelle Horowitz who was with the Workers Defense League and was one of the early people that was with Bayard, was staffing the Bayard tent. I always thought the miracle of the march, besides, of course, the leadership that Bayard and Mr. Randolph furnished was this was a whole period before cell phones and computers, and mobilize and move all of that humanity, pretty much on three-by-five cards, was an achievement that is unparalleled.

SM (01:03:46):
Yeah. I remember at the conference, and you may remember this too, I do not know who said it, but Mr. Rustin went out there very early in the morning, and there was not a soul there, and he was very worried.

EG (01:04:03):
Yeah, yeah. No. I mean, the buses, and people came by car and train, and they just all sort of appeared, just out of the ground, out of the sky. They all showed up.

SM (01:04:16):
I know there was an excellent YouTube that I listened to about a week ago that had Mr. Mankiewicz and James Baldwin and Marlon Brando and Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier and Charlton Heston. And they were talking-

EG (01:04:35):
Yeah. I mean, they had enough star power and all that. I mean, they were just participants. And while they were huge names, it was the 200,000 people who believed enough that this was the time to show witness, and they all came.

SM (01:05:00):
And you worked for Jimmy Carter too. You were appointed to the position of assistant secretary of housing and urban affairs.

EG (01:05:08):
No, I was assistant secretary of labor.

SM (01:05:09):
Oh, assistant secretary of labor.

EG (01:05:11):
Yeah. Oh. That is misinformation on the web. Yeah. No, the Google has the wrong info. No, I was the assistant secretary of labor and had responsibility for the Employment and Training program.

SM (01:05:29):
What did you think of Jimmy Carter?

EG (01:05:31):
Oh, I admired him. I thought Carter was... I thought he was an outstanding president, that as time goes on, I think, he will be understood more. And Carter really had as difficult at task as President Obama has. I mean, he was coming out of an economic doldrum and the oil shock and all. He got blamed for a lot of it.

SM (01:06:06):
Do you think it was a mistake to give the Malaise Speech?

EG (01:06:14):
Probably, because that was more than blaming the malaise on the time and the period. I have said many times that President Carter was probably better after he left the office than when he was having to deal with all the competing interests.

SM (01:06:42):
Yeah. He has been probably our best ex-president in terms of what he has done with his life.

EG (01:06:47):
Right. Yeah, absolutely.

SM (01:06:49):
The Carter Center, and he goes all over the world. At least he is away two weeks a year in some part of the world. He is always active.

EG (01:06:58):
No. He has been an outstanding, and he has had an intellectual grasp of all the things that are wrong with... or how things can be improved. I would not say things are wrong.

SM (01:07:13):
The one commentary, before I go to the next question, the criticism of President Carter is that he was so intelligent and so smart that he had to have his hands in everything, and he had a hard time delegating.

EG (01:07:25):
Yeah. He was not Lyndon Johnson in terms of how to figure out dealing with all the... especially the legislature, the House and the Senate.

SM (01:07:41):
You were an Eagle Scout, and I have a friend who was an Eagle Scout, Mike Arliss, and I know how difficult that is to even become one. And scouting has been a very important part of your life. How did you ever get started in that, and how did it impact your career?

EG (01:08:01):
Well, I got started in scouting because my best friend's grandfather was a scoutmaster, and it was, of course, some activity to be involved. And from that, I had received my Eagle Scout badge the year before I went to Central. When I was in the 11th grade, my friend and I, Waldo Brunson, were two of the youngest Eagle Scouts ever to receive the Eagle Scout Award. And many years later I went back to Little Rock. This was after college and all. And in (19)94, I think it was, they made me a Distinguished Eagle Scout. And I found scouting to give me a lot of leadership skills, and I benefited from that, I think, before I went to Central.

SM (01:09:22):
Was not there also that feeling that when you are a Boy Scout or even a Cub Scout, it is a feeling of camaraderie, fellowship, and also a lot of freedom.

EG (01:09:32):
Well, but also feeling of accomplishment. I mean, you have tasks. You have goals that you have to set, and it is a good preparation for future activity.

SM (01:09:48):
You have three kids, and I know one is an unbelievable historian, Adam.

EG (01:09:54):
Right.

SM (01:09:55):
What do your other kids do with their profession? And I guess the second part of my question is how did you teach them, when they were very young, about what you went through as a teenager in the South of the (19)50s? Because they grew up in another era, and here you are a parent talking to your children.

EG (01:10:15):
Well, my two daughters... Jessica lives in New York, and she is involved with a documentary film organization and has been able to make a career out of that. And then my youngest is a recent graduate of University of Miami, and she is soon to be a media... I think she is going to be my media mogul. She is both a... She studied communications at Miami and also minored in sports management. She has got a real ear and eye for the sports world. There was a double major between the media activity and the sports management. And the youngest, of course, is further away from any of the imagery of the (19)50s. But she is very savvy and so is Jessica in terms of the history. And they have seen from it that my difficulties were laying groundwork for them. And they see the past, the benefits from what we tried to do. And both McKenzie and Jessica have participated in a number of the events, and the anniversary affairs. They have been to Little Rock a number of times. They have [inaudible], and McKenzie particularly in those, the Jesse Jacksons of the world and others who played a role in the movement. In fact, McKenzie went to school with Andy Young's granddaughter.

SM (01:12:29):
Oh wow.

EG (01:12:29):
So it is a-

SM (01:12:29):
A small world.

EG (01:12:31):
It is a tiny world. And they recognize the benefits that they accrued from it. And I am always very pleased with their ability to recognize that and to want to contribute something during their generation.

SM (01:12:55):
Adam is an unbelievable historian, and I saw, of course, on Brother Outsider, but I had a chance to interview him last year. And then I know how much he has held in respect by all those people that were at that conference too. Did your experiences play a role in Adam becoming a historian? Because he has-

EG (01:13:18):
From me, he-

SM (01:13:19):
...a tremendous knowledge of the whole Civil Rights era and all of American history. He is...

EG (01:13:24):
Yeah. Well, Adam comes out of a family of teachers on both sides, his mother's side and on my side of the family. So he caught the teaching bug early and wanted to continue to play a role. So I am proud of that spirit, that desire to pass on to the future generations, the information. He has done a great job with that.

SM (01:14:05):
You know what is amazing is... I am a history person. That was my undergraduate, and then my love of history. And for him to be at the University of Chicago right now, after going from the other school, I mean, I consider him one distinguished historian. And the interview I had with him was just outstanding. And his knowledge and his depth of understanding history in the connections that he can make between this event and that event is just... Well, they are very lucky to have him there.

EG (01:14:35):
Well, I think so too. Absolutely.

SM (01:14:39):
Now, the next question I have is when you look at the Civil Rights leaders that were very well known when you were going to college and so forth, Dr. King, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Bayard Rustin, and of course, John Lewis and Julian Bond and Dorothy Height. A J Muste played a role, too, in influencing Mr. Rustin. Nonviolence and Gandhi's approach was what they believed in. And then we had the next group that followed, which was Malcolm X. Then you had the Bobby Seales, the Stokely Carmichaels, the H Rap Browns, the Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, Huey Newton, Fred Hampton, and Angela Davis. And they had a different approach. It was more of a confrontational, by any means necessary, Black Power. Did you have a problem when this change happened?

EG (01:15:41):
Well, I mean, I always thought I was a lot more practical. I was somewhere in between the changes in style and approach. I mean, one of the reasons I found the work with the Randolph Institute and the apprenticeship program fulfilling was that we were results oriented. And sometimes some of the other activity was less results, and it is more optic. So yeah, I just felt there was still the strand that had been going on for some time. It was Du Bois and Booker T Washington. It was Garvey. It was something that we had seen before.

SM (01:16:51):
And actually, if you think about it, it was even Dr. King and Thurgood Marshall because if you remember, Dr. King admired Thurgood Marshall. But he also said that was a more gradualist approach, by going through the courts and laws and having laws passed.

EG (01:17:07):
Right.

SM (01:17:07):
Dr. King wanted it now.

EG (01:17:10):
Well, and I think each generation wants it now, but the reality is now requires a whole series of building blocks. If you think that the march at Edmond Pettus Bridge is really one of the things that helped bring about the Voting Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act eventually led to President Obama. But the length of time it took to get from across the bridge to Obama was what, 30 years?

SM (01:17:54):
Yep.

EG (01:17:55):
Yeah. I always thought that Little Rock would be just another story in the long line of school cases. And I am still surprised that it stood out as one of the singular examples of that whole era.

SM (01:18:25):
Where did you stand on Dr. King, two things, when he proclaimed that we need to judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character? And also he said we need to concentrate on people's economic conditions and not just race. And he was criticized for going away from the race issue toward more economics. And I think the conservatives today try to take Dr. King's words on content of their character as saying, "We got to get beyond race." They use it to their advantage. Get your thoughts on Dr. King's... on both of those areas.

EG (01:19:04):
Well, race is such a long and thorny part of this country. It is impossible to get away from race. But the economic, the ability to have decent jobs, decent housing all tied to the achievement... I see it as the achievement gap, the differentials between Black and white income. It is intertwined. It is not an either/or. That was the great experience working with Bayard and Mr. Randolph, that that got reinforced all of the time.

SM (01:19:55):
Dr. King was also criticized for going North, where many belief he should have stayed in the South and concentrated on racism there. And I think Bayard Rustin, if I am not mistaken, was against him going North and believed that he should have made his efforts staying in the South. And I just had an interview with Julius Lester, and he said he thought King failed miserably up in the North, and he should have stayed in the South. Your thoughts on that because Dr. King saw racism everywhere.

EG (01:20:26):
Well, that is where income gap and other things all intertwined. It was, excuse the pun, a lot less Black and white in the North than it was issues in the South. And whether it was Chicago or wherever, it was the politics of it, the history all made it more murkier than the battles in Birmingham and Mississippi and other places, and Arkansas. So yeah, in a lot of ways, I mean, Dr. King was always being pushed to do something else, other than what he was doing.

SM (01:21:16):
Do you think he failed in the North?

EG (01:21:18):
I do not think so. I mean, at the end of the day, he highlighted the duplicity that while you did not have formal segregation in the North, you had de facto segregation. And it was the same as the Jim Crow rules. Either formally or informally, you were not there.

SM (01:21:47):
Where do we stand today in the area of civil rights? Is there still a long way to go? Or where are the specific weaknesses still? Some people will say that all of the movements, not just the Civil Rights Movement but the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the environmental movement, the Chicano, Asian American, even some of the anti-war, that they have all weakened. They are not seen as much. They are not heard. And if they are heard, they are singular in their approach, and they do not work together.

EG (01:22:21):
Well, that is probably an apt criticism of them. Yeah. I think the Civil Rights Movement today is still wrestling with some of the same issues, education, housing, jobs, and trying to see how you can have a broader benefit. I mean, that is what all of these movements are suffering from, is how do you broaden the benefit space beyond just a few being able to grow and gain from it. To me, that is the issue we wrestle with in this country.

SM (01:23:05):
I remember seeing an interview with you on YouTube, where at the 50th anniversary of the 1957... It is at the high school. Somebody asked you a question regarding that there were very few African Americans still at the school in Little Rock. Is that true?

EG (01:23:29):
Well, that was in... They have general courses, and then they have all of the college prep on the advanced courses, and the number of African American youngsters in the advanced placement programs were relatively small compared to where they were placed in the general studies. This is an issue that I do not think is only in Little Rock.

EG (01:24:03):
I do not think is only in Little Rock, but-

SM (01:24:04):
It is all over the country.

EG (01:24:05):
With a lot of school systems. Yeah.

SM (01:24:08):
And I know it is that way in Philly.

EG (01:24:11):
And that is an issue that we have to address. And I always thought that my youngest daughter many times had the attitude of many of the teachers were that somehow, she could not do the advanced work. She proved for them to be wrong on that. It is a mindset that reinforces it. When I was a graduate student at Michigan State, did a study on just Detroit school systems and the extracurricular things that as the school turned more and more African American, the special programs like the chess club and the science fair, I mean, all these things started being removed. The assumption was they were removing them even before the students had an opportunity to discover whether they could perform the work or not. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and to me, this is one of the things that we have got to break through.

SM (01:25:38):
But I know that in 1999, all members of the Little Rock Nine, all nine of you received the Congressional Gold Medal. That must have been quite an experience.

EG (01:25:51):
It was. It was a high moment. Had not expected it to occur, going back to (19)57.

SM (01:25:59):
How did you find out that this was happening then? Were you called and said, please come? We are honoring all of them.

EG (01:26:07):
It is a long process. We were sponsored by Congressman Benny Thompson from Mississippi, and it requires the approval of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

SM (01:26:24):
Wow.

EG (01:26:29):
Congressman Thompson proposed it on the house side and Senator Bumpers proposed it on the Senate side, Bumpers and Pryor. But it took almost a year for the whole system to work itself through.

SM (01:26:47):
Was your mother there?

EG (01:26:49):
No, my mother had passed.

SM (01:26:52):
Okay. I just was hoping she may have been there. And with respect to President Obama, do you think he has done a fairly decent job in civil rights or I know he has been caught up in all these other issues. Where would you put him? Would you give him a grade so far?

EG (01:27:08):
I would give him an A. I think that he has wrestled with a number of the issues because of what he inherited. And I am of the opinion that legislation at this moment is probably not what we need as much as some policy changes and his continuation on the economy. The economy affected particularly the black community. It devastated it. Home ownership, manufacturing, the industrial belt, loss of jobs. All of that has had a very detrimental effect.

SM (01:28:06):
It is interesting that he is so vilified by so many, and you watch television shows that... someone sent me an email the other day saying the reason why African Americans voted for President Obama was because he was an African American and they did not look at his policies. And to me, that is signs that that is a racist statement to me. Then also President Obama's critics say that he is the epitome of the return of the (19)60s. President Obama will say, "I have nothing to do with the (19)60s," because he was two years old.

EG (01:28:49):
Well, I think there is a segment of people in this country that just realize that President Obama is not Caucasian and they are still shocked. My view in a changing world in which the next 30, 40 years, the world is going to be multiethnic that a group of people here still clinging to the old days in Little Rock. They would like to reverse this country back to pre-Supreme Court decision in (19)54.

SM (01:29:37):
Now Ernie, one thing I will never forget is Henry Cisneros, the former mayor I believe, of San Antonio.

EG (01:29:43):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SM (01:29:45):
Before he got into trouble, he was speaking in the (19)90s at the NASPA conference that I attended. The higher ed conference. There was this young woman who stood up, a white woman, very well-dressed. She approached and she said he had just given a great lecture on what we were saying, that we were all going to be working for people who are of different color and so forth down the road and just be prepared because this is America. America's changing, and that is okay. It is part of what America is. She stood up and said that she was very afraid of the future and asked him what words of advice that he could give to her after she had just listened to this great lecture, which she should have gotten it. And basically his commentary was, "You need to prepare for the future because the future means that you are going to be working for people of different colors throughout your life." And it is not something to fear, it is just something to, it is part of the evolution of our country. It was an unbelievable moment. And she was afraid of... She was obviously was not prepared for all the changes. Do you think as a nation we have an issue with healing within this nation? Especially within the boomer generation, those born between (19)46 and (19)64, that due to the tremendous divisions that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s between black and white, male and female, gay and straight. Even those who supported the war, against the war. Do you think that they are going to go to their graves like the Civil War generation went to its grave not truly healing to...

EG (01:31:31):
I do not think so. I think there is a lot more. My focus on change. I went back last year for my 50th high school reunion. The class that I graduated with at Central. I said that I could not find anybody in that room who would at this time, wanted to prevent me from going to school there. Everybody wanted to be my best friend. I am sure there is a segment of this country that they can assess to it, but I think for the most part, whether it is getting used to the Internet or getting used to the fact that the good old boys do not run it anymore. I see people making that adjustment and beginning to live with that change.

SM (01:32:44):
Our students asked that question to Senator Redmond Muskies in 1995, the year before he died. His response was they thought he was going to talk about (19)68 and the convention and all the assassinations that year and that terrible year. That is what students thought he was going to respond. His response is, "We have not healed since the Civil War and the issue of race." He went on to explain in detail, and he actually had tears in his eyes. He had tremendous emotion talking about it. And he gave kind of a history lesson of racism and talked about the Civil War and 600,000 men died in that war. And he made no mention of 1968 or the (19)60s.

EG (01:33:35):
I do not subscribe to that. I think that probably is a segment who would, or all these re-enacters, but most of the people know that the Civil War we fought, oh, about a hundred years ago, has got to be behind us. And if we want to survive as a country, we can get ourselves stuck in that. But going forward is going to require a lot more.

SM (01:34:08):
Would you say also that the boomer generation and I include everybody of color because when I am talking about the boomer generation, I am talking every color, ethnic group, male, female, gay and straight. Do you think as a group they do not trust? That is because of the experiences that they had growing up, the lies that were told to them by leaders in all capacities, and certainly at the national level with President Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin, Watergate with Richard Nixon, Eisenhower or the U-2 incident, McNamara and the numbers game from the war. You could not believe anybody. There was a sense that you could not trust anybody in leadership.

EG (01:34:55):
Well, I take the view that it is because we have so much more information and there is a certain innocence if America had the same focus on World War II and death camps and a whole series of other things going on that we have now, people would have been probably even a lot more suspicious about the outcome from the end of World War II or even the First World War. I mean, it is a fact of changes that occurred, the amount of information we have, the ability to question authority. All of that seems to me as is what the boomer generation has had an opportunity to deal with.

SM (01:36:00):
Yes, and it is interesting if you are a political science major. The first thing you learn in political science 101 is that not trusting your government means that is a strong citizenry because it is good not to trust your government. Keep them on their toes.

EG (01:36:15):
Well, and you learn to question everybody everywhere.

SM (01:36:20):
I only got three more questions and I am done. All right. Was the early civil rights movement sexist with respect to very few women were in leadership roles. I have read so many books saying that the women's movement came about because of the sexism that took place within the civil rights and anti-war movement.

EG (01:36:41):
We had the nine. We had six women and three young men, so we dealt with female leadership very early. And as far as the leadership of the Whitney Youngs and the Randolph's and Wilkins and all, my experience, when I was in college was a growing number of young women who were attending school and playing leadership roles. For me, it was the best of a problem.

SM (01:37:30):
And again, a lot of the women's movement people have said they have moved over because of that. And one of the examples that is used is that March on Washington in (19)63 when all you saw was Dorothy was Dorothy Height really to the right and Mahalia Jackson singing. So it was all men, but I guess everybody has their own perceptions. Where were you when JFK was killed and subsequently, where were you when MLK and Bobby Kennedy were killed? Do you know exactly where you were when all three of those things happened?

EG (01:38:03):
Well, when Kennedy was killed, I was at Michigan State. I was in graduate school when Dr. King was killed, I was coming to New York. Well, I was living in New York and I had just landed on a plane in LaGuardia. When Bobby Kennedy was killed, I am not sure where I was. I think I was in New York, but being in... And JFK I remember vividly where I was at the time I was there.

SM (01:38:52):
Yeah, I guess I have asked others. There were so many assassinations. You had John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, you had Medgar Evers, you had Malcolm X, you had even the attempt on Wallace and Gerald Ford was... Somebody tried to shoot him, but it was really had no chance. Then the Ronald Reagan. It seems like, and there are others too, what does that say about America when people in positions of responsibility... Dr. King used to always say, "You can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream." It is...

EG (01:39:28):
Yeah. Well, and I think my own personal experience that all of the political balance, I guess if we were protected by angels, because you could have walked into... This is before metal detectors and searches and all. They could have been guns at Michigan centralized. But, we have this wild west mentality sometimes. Then the availability of guns that I just think you have to continue to get people to try to settle disputes and something other than physical violence. That was, to me, the legacy of Dr. King, that the most important weapon is what is between your head and your brain. Tired a cliché as that may seem, that is still to me the important legacy of his teaching.

SM (01:40:54):
Well, do you think... You have been to the Vietnam Memorial?

EG (01:40:59):
Yes.

SM (01:41:00):
What Was your feelings when you went there for the first time? What was going through your mind?

EG (01:41:06):
Well, that a lot of people lost their lives for what was basically a changing set of demographics. And now we look up and Vietnam is a trading partner of ours, and we are sending tourists over there and people are buying and selling goods and services. It is-

SM (01:41:36):
Amazing what times does.

EG (01:41:38):
Yeah. And I believe that we had to lose a lot of good people for the country to understand this was a changing set of events over there that we probably should have let occur rather than trying to how to disrupt them.

SM (01:42:04):
You have been involved in many boards, but one that really interested me was the one that started in 2004, which was Scout Reach, where you were involved as a volunteer director of serving 600 boys in distressed areas of England. How did you become involved and...

EG (01:42:27):
Scout Reach? Well, Scout Reach is part of the effort to give scouting to young men who do not come from traditional middle-class families. And it was, I guess, part of the outgrowth of the service end of my growing up experiences that you are expected to try to serve and impact somebody beyond yourself and them.

SM (01:43:04):
Any Eagle Scouts out of there yet?

EG (01:43:07):
None that I am aware. Not yet.

SM (01:43:11):
Okay. I am sure the first one that makes it, you will go bring them to the United States or whatever. My last question is this, history books are often written 50 to 75 years after an event. And that is the best books are sometimes take that long to really understand the period. When you look at this post-World War II America, civil Rights, the anti-war movement, certainly all the other movements, the activism, the backlash with Ronald Reagan coming in 1980, the rise of the conservatives and so forth, and then back and forth. Now we have President Obama. So the last 65 years that boomers have been alive have been unbelievable times as you have described so well in answering some of my questions. What do you think the history books and the sociologists and historians will say after the last boomer has passed on from all ethnic groups and anyone who even is alive?

EG (01:44:13):
I think that this period is probably the most dynamic period that this country has ever seen. I view the last 50 years for me is probably some of the greatest changes that have occurred in this country and in this society. And the future is it is going to get faster, changes are going to be even greater. And I think this boomer generation has an opportunity to help prepare whatever we call the next generation to accept change and be ready for it to occur in a really rapid succession.

SM (01:45:09):
Well, the naysayers and doubters that criticize this generation, and there are many, a lot of them placed the blame on boomers for the ... Because of the sexual revolution, the divorce rate, the welfare state mentality, the lack of respect for law and order. These are terms that come from the backlash, especially toward anyone that was involved in activism. But what do you think? How do you respond to these people who make general commentaries that the problems we face in our society today go right back to that period of the (19)60s and (19)70s? The counterculture, the culture wars. We saw it with John Kerry when he ran for president in 2004, that they cannot get over what he said as a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It is non-ending.

EG (01:46:08):
Well, but there is a crowd that would blame change on anything other than their ability to accept it. My attitude is we continue to push on and push beyond them.

SM (01:46:27):
My last commentary was, and I have heard this in my interviews, is well, the boomer generation said they were going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, and war, bring peace. Look at the world today. I would say they have not done it. When you hear that, and it is a general commentary toward this generation that thought they were so special.

EG (01:46:52):
Well, my aunt says that the founding fathers said that they were going to create a society of equality. And we had a lot of the leadership, Jefferson and Washington and others who were big slave owners. It is an imperfect world. We were always working to make changes. And my view is these ideals that we want to try to achieve, we just have to keep working on them. And that was my view when I went to Little Rock Central in (19)57 that I did not know if I would create a perfect world, but I knew I had to start somewhere.

SM (01:47:38):
And your current work that you have been doing since (19)85 to today?

EG (01:47:43):
Well, I have been an investment banker with a couple of firms, and now I am involved with an effort in partnership with a couple of other people to create a fund and private equity and see if we cannot grow some businesses.

SM (01:48:07):
And we need businesses today. No question about that. Ernie, I do not know if you have any final comments or all. I am done.

EG (01:48:13):
No, I think you have covered quite a waterfront, so I will look forward to seeing the final outcome.

SM (01:48:23):
Great. And what I will do is you will see your transcript. I am going to be hibernating for about nine months, transcribing all these myself. And then of course the final approval will be when you see it, and then you will make any corrections or whatever.

EG (01:48:40):
All right. I will look forward to seeing it.

SM (01:48:43):
And finally, I am going to need two pictures of you, but I will come down to Washington and take your picture sometime in the spring or early summer.

EG (01:48:48):
Okay, very good. I will look for it.

SM (01:48:51):
Ernie, thank you very much. Continued success in everything you do. My heart will be there at the University of Arkansas when they honor your mom.

EG (01:49:00):
Yeah. Okay. Well...

SM (01:49:02):
What day is that?

EG (01:49:03):
It is the Sunday of Mother's Day.

SM (01:49:06):
Wow.

EG (01:49:07):
So I think it is like the 13th or 14th.

SM (01:49:11):
Well, your mom will be right there with you.

EG (01:49:12):
All right.

SM (01:49:13):
She will be there.

EG (01:49:15):
Thank you.

SM (01:49:15):
Ernie, you have a great day and thank you very much.

EG (01:49:17):
All right. You too. Goodbye.

SM (01:49:17):
Bye.

(End of Interview)

2011-03-03

Stephen McKiernan

Ernest G. (Ernest Gideon) Green, 1941-

109:21

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

Civil rights workers; Consultants; Investment advisors; Central High School (Little Rock, Ark.)--History; School integration--Arkansas--Little Rock--History--20th century; Green, Ernest G. (Ernest Gideon), 1941--Interviews

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