LIFE IN THE SOUTH BEFORE BROWN IN THE EARLY FIFTIES. YOU WERE TRAVELING—YOU'RE SOUTHERN-BORN YOURSELF—WHAT'S IT LIKE FOR BLACKS IN THE SOUTH AT THIS TIME?
Well, before Brown, the South was segregated. It was accepted that—by both by both sides, North and South—that segregation was a way of life and there were departures from it. Some Blacks went over the line but if you were in the South, I gather you knew exactly where the line was. It became—it was difficult for someone from the North who was a Black to go South because—you weren't used to the patterns and so you would cross—cross the line, and if one did there would be—there was likely to be a great deal of trouble about it. It wasn't you know the lynching and so forth that went on, but life in general was a way in which people knew where their—where they were going, where their place was. Blacks knew this. They didn't like it, but they did, and it didn't appear to me when I was going South that there—the vehemence of racism, overt racism which I encountered immediately after Brown, there seemed to be less of it and that was because the white—white in general didn't expect any—didn't expect things to change.