Quest for Civil Rights: Modjeska Monteith Simkins

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm grace Jordan McFadden with mrs. ma Jessica Simpkins a native of Columbia South Carolina a leader in the area of civil rights and one of South Carolina's outstanding citizens mrs. Simpkins we might begin by asking you to just give some historical background about mrs. Simpkins I was born in Columbia South Carolina December 5th 1899 and my and have always lived here my parents were born in Columbia my father was a bricklayer by trade and when he was married he believed as would be hard to believe today in the housing situation that we now have he believes that when a man married he should take his wife into a home of his own and so the house into which he took my mother's a bride still stands and there it was there that I was born my father's parents were born in Columbia my mother's parents my mother's father was born in Athens Georgia born as a slave and we still have in our family is help childless which he wore as a little boy standing by the the slave auction block as his mother was being sold away from him his mother by the way found him later as he was married and living in Columbia my and he died here she died here in Columbia with her son my mother his mother was born in Sumter in Sumter County South Carolina she was born as a slave and belonged to a family of seals and had had some of the back somewhat the background of the Turkish colony that still remnants which still live in Sumter County at one time the the descendants of those turts how they got there I don't know but up in recent years until very recently they could not go either the white are the black schools I don't know what their education situation is today my mother was a teacher before I was born and stayed in the educational process in some measure as long as she lived and my my mother and father were fearless persons and taught their children that no one was better than they unless they behaved better than they did and we were taught to respect all people without regard to race or color or there was no denomination of prejudice allowed in our family what were your parents names my father's name was Henry Clarence Monteith my mother's name was Rachel ho Monty and you mentioned their parents what were their parents names my mother's name was Sarah who and her father's name was George oh I have a cousin by the way her first cousin still living who's his name for his grandfather my mother's my father's father was named Walter Monteith he was an outstanding attorney in Columbia at that time he was a product of the I like to call it the moonlight integration my mother my father's mother his name was Mary Dobbins Brown hmm but my father was given and always wore his father's name his father visited us when we were little children I remember him very clearly hmm and how he was very proud of my brother who is still living and who is president of the bank in this town and for years was one of the outstanding physicians and surgeons in Columbia since he's reached a certain age he does that does vary practice now but I remember my white grandfather and I remember my black grandmother who definitely was black one of the prettiest black women I ever saw and and that was my father's name was Walter Monteith and outstanding attorney until of me at that time my grandmother's name was Mary Dobbins Brown the Dobbins Keith Memorial Building at Marist College is named for one of her sisters who was outstanding in religious work in this state during that era were you educated in the public schools of South Carolina I never went to public schools we always always went to private schools I mean the older children of us at that time Benedict College was supposed to give the very best education that could be acquired by Negroes and I first day I went to school I went to school at Benedict they had classes from the Primmer hmm own up through college at that mm-hmm and the first day I went to school I went to the what they call the practice school at Benedict and the last day I did my undergraduate work I did a Benedict and my sister I have a sister who died in 1926 and my brother dr. Monty the three of us went from Prima all the way through college at Benedict what was significant about that education well of the as you know schools like the Benedict and Claflin and Spellman and those schools were founded and nurtured by northerners called Yankees they came down many of them came from nothing they dedicated their lives to the training of the children of the freedmen hmm and so I came up under that type of atmosphere where there was a thoroughness I can say this I've said repeatedly you didn't get today's lesson tomorrow you got today's lesson today and it's very much like banking banking closes banking activity closes that date bow that day and so what they gave us a sign an assignment that assignment was be done that day and it was thorough the basics with the teaching of the basics we are and also we they had strict biblical training that is we had we had classes and Bible that had to be passed just like we passed the wristlet of geography anything else and then we had Chapel every day and everybody had to go to Chapel and everybody had to have a Bible and then everybody read Bible in Chapel responsive readings so that I have been not only aged he students with a Bible on my life but the student the world religions because I am NOT a person who believes that the judeo-christian religion is the only religion that everybody doesn't believe in it's going to hell I don't believe in that I so I've been a student of religion all of my life but the background of that interest was those dedicated northern teachers that came south to help educate the freedmen the children of the freedom Mississippians your name is synonymous with civil rights in South Carolina what sparked your initial interest in civil rights I guess the background my mother and father's business and my mother the Niagara movement predated the NAACP and they printed as I remember a magazine called the voice and my mother subscribed to that and my mother was a great reader she'd have a children sit around and listen to important things particularly about what happened to our people she read to us about every lynching there's a great era of lynching and she read to us and you would think that a mother wouldn't read to her child about those atrocities but she did we always had a newspaper a daily paper and at night after we got through with the journal and run of the work of the day we sit around and she read to us and explained what was happening and so I think that we were inspired with it with the idea that we should dedicate ourselves to the service of the people and that that it was that you didn't need honor for doing service but you should be condemned for not doing it if you were able to do it then that's been my philosophy or only way through life I never felt that I should be praised and honored for doing what I had been blessed to be able to do you were one of the founders of the South Carolina yeah NAACP what was the reason for the formation of the NACP in South Carolina the inequities in education the fact that we had a white primary that shut us out of the electoral process you know all of us know quite well that the 13 colonies fought England on the cry of taxation without representation and their 150 years about after the Revolution we were still being taxed without representation and so we decided to go to we decided we needed an organization and the the idea came from one mr. bird who had moved in here from North Carolina and we came together it happens that mr. Barrett and I are the only two living initiators of that group that's mr. Levi Levi bird of Shiro and so on we decided on mr. bird inspiration that we should hailed on state organization of the few branches that were organized at that time which were perhaps about seven and then we call together the representatives of those branches and then we decided that we would make our first fight for the vote now you know history your teaching history and these young people in the school know history and that that during the ringing of Ben Tillman the black people what totally disfranchised Ben Tillman as you would read in the in a book by one mr. Jordan who is now dead but the the history of Ben Tillman totally disfranchising Negroes in South Carolina and prior to that I mean then they had what they call the grandfather clause which meant that if your daddy voted for Wade Hampton you could vote well a whole lot of his daddy's voted for Wade Hampton because they were slave masters and slave masters children but they wouldn't going to own their granddaddy's you know so they could get to vote and but anyway when the grandfather clause went out then they brought in the you'd have to be white in 21 and then later they brought in this literacy thing and we would go and appeal to the Richland County Democratic people here and they said it taken under advisement so finally we got tired of hearing and we decided that we would go to court and the event eventually we got the road under the wheel decision the well innocently went on a Supreme Court but but it started with the Waring's court here in Columbia we were not interested only in the vote but we realized that early and had realized some years before that the only salvation was going to be at the ballot box so we were concerned about the road we were concerned about the fact that black teachers teaching the same classes during the same word for instance in the city school to Columbia which was supposed to be the most out end system in the state black teachers are Negro teachers at that time that's what they were what we call them then they were paid just about half as much as white teachers were paid for doing the same work and we were able to get little Inklings and news about that you know and sometimes you'd be standing lying in the bank cash in your chips and you'd see what other ones got right in front of you you know so the the iniquitous in education that is in school buildings and in teacher salaries and then you know you talk about the transportation all this hullabaloo about busing why the white people too first wanted to ride in the bus and they didn't let us ride in them you know my mother taught for years and they passed our children on the road and sometimes the bus driver would find it was a dirt road then in front of our school he found a puddle that he could run into and splash the mud on the colored children and spit out of the windows on Menaul like that pass into blatant of no-good black school to go to the best they could find a white school which none of them fit because it found in the first world war that the whites trained and what they called the best white schools couldn't cover up the rights for some of other areas so the the education the inequities in education and transportation to schools the the inequities in provisions for school instance my mother the school the where they had five months first they had when we wound out there they had three months schools then they went to four months and then the one to five months the parent had to get together and give children strips and box party all the kind of things like that maybe pay the teachers are nothing month they pay the teachers and then they moved up to six months and after while they got the seven months by but the county would pay for when a certain amount of that time then you'd pay the rest then four would very often children come to school with and they'd have to get wood from out of the woods themselves and then they'd have to dry the children before that you teach them now that I've seen that I'm not talking about something somebody told me so those things were not only true in - in the rural areas of Columbia they were true all over South Carolina the school buildings were poor and hadn't been for large homes and churches Negro children had any way to go to school what do you feel they were the major achievements of the South Carolina in ACP at the time when the organization was really struggling to do something about well the winning of the of the 1954 decision the and we won the transportation case the the we did something other in that time that wasn't definitely on NACP activity in that when the 50 when the people signed the petitions against school segregation the squeeze what we called squeeze was put on them in various of these rural areas where many of them that had the credit extended them for years and well in Orangeburg they stop selling them coca-cola and servicing the cocoa machines black places and one was part of the wire to stop dropping milk at the door you know in those days they used to drop the baby airman dropped the milk on your front porch in the morning and they put the squeeze on and then we at the time that mr. Delaney's church was burned eeehm Booker think his name is again where there Booker with jet and one or two other men came into the state they stopped at our motel and disguised themselves as farmers country people and went down into and by the time they found it was there and the just about did get out by time the white starting to found it was then they got back to me and told us that night about it well then when when they dropped they asked me that night the return from Lake City they asked me if I knew of anything that they could do this is this is book honor of the object yesterday that I knew of anything that they could do to help the people who were being pressured in these areas I said well if you could just put a little box and jet and say something about it and maybe we'll get some relief help aid from these people from other areas which he did and then clothing and food and medicines and candies and for Christmas and all like that came in just flowed into this we dispensed it is the South Carolina NAACP a necessary and viable organization today or has it outlived its usefulness I don't say that the NAC PS the NAACP of the competent South Carolina is not serving the people and I'm not saying something here that I haven't said open our radio and and in public in various places it's because the administration since the late fifties has gotten too close to the power structure they've just actually actually sold out to the South Carolina Democratic Party so the black boat the black boat it is felt that the black vote just belongs to the Democratic Party I have nothing against the Democratic Party or the Republican Party but I'm saying that no organization should feel that has black board in his pocket but when you find when you find that they just about know well evidences of you and I know about would make you know that where when the elections but I'd say this when you go to an NAACP state conference meeting and you see all the big dogs of the power structure there at the dinners and that the meetings then you know there's a dead cat on the line because they didn't come where we were when we had the type of organization we had in the early days of an HCP so the administration of any CPE has gotten so close to the power structure that they cannot fight for the necessary things the black people need in South Carolina Muhammad Ali will tell you to when you go into a scrimmage and hugging the man you can't hit the man seat and so you got to get far enough from him to get your punch in and so when the power structure of an HCP is so close to the power strokes of South Carolina that they can't fight for the people of South Carolina as many problems we have I said no it's not a viable organization how do you alter that if you turn the room through then wash all that bunch of cats out but it's not going to under the present administration it's not going to and I'm not I'm not reflecting on the president I think he would like to do a good job dr. Gibson I am reflecting on the conference office problem I think in a way the NACP from top down has gotten so because the NAC P is always trying to put up the front that they are the one and only mm-hm but so many other people have contributed to the to the movement and the fault that Wilkinson those always had against me was that my philosophy has always been I will travel with anybody that's going my way and that's the reason they saw it on me when I wrote I signed the petition for the communists 11 because I said that if any time you trample on the rights of one person in America you eventually may trample on the rights of all so yes I signed a petition both the various movements and so that's reading they wanted to call me a fellow traveler but I have I haven't had to make a string to do it but I about long ago that nobody went on the miner but just as simple just assume you're nice army Monteith was the first known black person to enroll at the University of South Carolina since reconstruction University of South Carolina what were the circumstances that led to that enrollment my sister vowed she died of cancer in 69 I think it was she vowed that it was the last thing she did she was going to open the University of South Carolina and so she decided she talked to the area CP parent being the attorney counselor that the counselor at that time and she decided what every - she was going to have her child be the client the she was teaching in the city schools a number of the Negro teachers said you don't know what you're gonna do you're gonna leave your job I don't like that well she went on and started the case and by the way until she died she had a job in the city schools the she started the case it wasn't finished in time for her to this child to get into the university at the beginning of the previous year we should came in and her children were read in Catholic schools and she said her to the Catholic College up in Maryland and the case was going on during that time judge Martin was the judge in that jurisdiction and so um on one occasion the a friend of mine was driving judge Martin and judge Martin sent me a message he said now and these were the words he said you tell her that there's no reason why the decision in that case should not go should not be favorable and you tell them as an is favor I want them to bring that yeah back here at the University not over his words that's just the way the judge told my friend to tell me I said so I said would you tell the judge don't worry she'll be back and the case was decided we brought her back down here they decided that it might be safer for her to stay on the campus that year and I think that's when they build that building that fence real fence down down picking street and they had creative security and texting and all like that but there wasn't one iota of trouble but my sister knew that she had cancer then and that eventually it was going to be the victim but she those were her words to me she says the last thing I do I'm gonna pop that university wide she made up a mind of that and that was the last big I she did she did a lot of other things in the field of education but that was what she was determined to do that was a dying wish mrs. Simpkins this December you'll be 80 years old and you've lived a long life of viable service and have met a number of very interesting people who are some of those persons you've met who you feel have made an impact on society I have met all the civil rights stalwarts and people interest in civil rights and labor Darnell Lewis the Ruth of Brothers Harold Ickes Clark Foreman who founded the one of the founders and by the way I was one of the founders of Southern Regional Council and Clark Forman was one of the founders of this emergency civil liberties committee President Johnson on the other side of corn Strom Thurmond McLeod Bethune we were on the committee I mean I won we were directors and the Southern Conference as well as in the southern Negro Youth Congress and I could just go on name I have met all the starts of the last two generations I mean I just the old don't come to me now but but Hubert Humphrey from way back you know from the 1948 convention and I could I could just name along this but I've touched the moma they've touched me one we love mrs. Simpkins we have just tapped some of the vivid recollections that you have you mentioned the great people you've met you you're one of the great people I've met and it's been a pleasure talking thank you [Music] Madison Square Garden for the rally it evidently aroused some concern because they wanted to know who was going to back it and I was going to pay for it and the Brotherhood underwrote him but fortunately they did not have to spend a penny because the contributions that night I think the entrance fee was either 25 or 50 cents or whatever then was small some paid for the raining of the God but the Brotherhood had the courage to underwrite it and at that meeting which was the scene I think I'll never forget the garden was packed from top to bottom and other trade unionists had reserved boxes and participated