Race relations in Atlanta during the 1920s and 1930s
Josephine Clement discusses race relations in Atlanta, Georgia, while she was growing up, primarily during the 1920s and 1930s. Clement describes how her parents always stressed the importance of confidence and set examples for their daughters in terms of challenging racial boundaries of segregation. In particular, Clement describes how her father's activities sometimes brought him into conflict with organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and how it led him to embrace radical politics for a time.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with William and Josephine Clement, June 19, 1986. Interview C-0031. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- WALTER WEARE:
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Maybe we could capture more of Spelman, Atlanta, the myth and reality of
early Atlanta.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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Well, I had a happy childhood. Unlike some things you read, and as I have
thought back on it and looked at it, I think the reason was because we
were so severely segregated. We were really protected from some of the
more traumatic experiences that some other people had. They had a large
community of black people in Atlanta. It has always had a good, strong
black community. And later, of course, as you got older, you ran into
some of this. My father's philosophy was that you never
accepted segregation unless you absolutely had to. That meant you
didn't go to theaters, you didn't go places for
amusement because there was no pleasure to go in the back door there. If
you had to go on the streetcar to go to school that was worth the
sacrifice. And he fought segregation for integration at every turn. I
can remember when he decided that he was not going in the side door of
the terminal station anymore.
- WALTER WEARE:
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This was the bus terminal?
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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No, it was the train terminal. And he drove up to the front door in his
Cadillac and his driver, and got out and walked in the front door. I
don't know, what year do you think that was?
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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I don't know, probably in the fifties. I can remember it, all
right.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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But everybody was horror-stricken, and all the black porters came to
greet him and to take his bags, and he strolled through and went on back
and nobody touched him.
- WALTER WEARE:
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This would have been, do you think, before World War II, that early, or
would it have been . . .
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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It was in the forties.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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Gosh, it probably was or late thirties, somewhere in there.
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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Mattiwilda - remember, she was on her trip back and
he alerted Chief Jenkins.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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He had a good relationship with . . . As Grand Master Mason, he
had a rule that each Master Mason must be a registered voter, also. This
posed a problem for people in rural Georgia trying to get registered.
And so they would appeal to the grand lodge and my father and a big
lawyer from Atlanta, the best lawyer they could employ, would go to
these little places. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes they were
not. Trying to help people get registered. Sometimes they were chased
out by the Ku Klux Klan. Sometimes the Ku Klux Klan would come to
Atlanta looking for him. But he had a good relationship with the sheriff
of Fulton County, who told him never to open his door to anybody because
they would have to serve a warrant through him, they could not serve it
directly. And this saved him, I think.
- WALTER WEARE:
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How do you account for that relationship?
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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There have always been some good white people.
- WALTER WEARE:
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Not usually the sheriff.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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Really!
[laughter]
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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Chief Jenkins was the chief of police.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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I thought he was the sheriff of Fulton County.
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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I think it was Chief Jenkins.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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But Atlanta has been an unusual place. It's been forward,
progressive. But my father continued that through the thirties and
forties, voter registration. There in about - when
did they form the Atlanta Voters League, that was before we married and
went to Atlanta - the late thirties?
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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The late thirties, because it was going very strong in 1940-41.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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There were about four hundred registered black voters in Atlanta and my
father and attorney Austin Walden, who was a Republican (my father was a
Democrat). Let me say this: my father was a Republican all his life, as
most black people were, to pay their debt of gratitude to the Republican
party. He became dissatisfied with it, and in searching for something
better, he moved to the Socialist party with Norman Thomas.
- WALTER WEARE:
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What year would that have been, do you know?
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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It was before Franklin Roosevelt, so that probably was back in the
twenties. Roosevelt came in the thirties, so probably in the twenties. I
think he said he voted for Norman Thomas twice. Seeking something that
would help people, would better them. There was not the connotation that
you have today with socialism. When Roosevelt came to office in
1932, he became enamored of him and began to
campaign for him, changed his registration to Democrat. He was able to
meet Franklin D. Roosevelt through his personal valet, who was a Mason.