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Michael Snow: This is tape one side one-- side two, of the State and Local
Government Archives interview with Byrd Brown. You were talking about
deferment and going into Yale Law School. Byrd Brown: So I walked in there
and I asked her how much did it cost to apply? And they said, if you go to
Yale College, nothing. My father would be trying to send me several money
orders that were blank to apply to Michigan, Columbia, and Harvard, all the
other great law schools in the country-- because I think you do. I didn't
really like Yale. I didn't want to stay there in New Haven with that social
climate and no girls [laughs]. So I got the application. I filled it out. I
filed it. I took those money orders. I said, You say this was about my
father come down and get me and put my name on them and went to Miami for
two weeks. Snow: Oh, wow. Brown: So if I had not been admitted to Yale Law
School, I would not have been admitted to any law school, because I didn't
apply to any backup, I didn't apply to Pitt or Duquesne or anything like
that. I had no backup. And I'd been-- so after that I never would have been
a lawyer because there wasn't anything I was supremely interested in doing.
Snow: No. Brown: I was probably [unintelligible]. Snow: Were-- were you
that brilliant that you could-- that you knew you would get in? Brown: I
think I was being silly or childish. Snow: Okay. Brown: Well, yeah, I had
scored over-- in the upper 95% that was-- that wasn't the reason I had--
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Brown: I just would have done it anyway-- I just was-- I-- when you were
in an isolated situation all your life. Like my father was always somebody
and I felt I was always somebody because hey I was the only child. I think
it would be a little bizarre, maybe. I was-- you could totally be like
everyone else, or are you going to be a little different? Sometimes I was a
little different you know. I tried to be like everyone else, but usually I
wasn't. Now that I look at it, that was like a damn silly thing to do, you
know. Snow: Especially with Korea going on. Brown: Well, especially since
you're in law school. The hardest law school Snow: Absolutely to get into,
which I did not know. I mean, see, Harvard had a different theory. Harvard
had a theory that there were a bit more people. And it was a famous thing
at Harvard, the professor said, look on the left of you and look on the
right of you, because by the time you graduate, two of you not gone be
here. Snow: Hmm. Brown: So Yale had this theory of only admitting the
number they intend to graduate. So-- here I was in a situation where the
probability of getting accepted was not that good, but I just-- I saw these
blank money orders and I had to do something, but it was a great trip to
Miami. I stayed in the [??] hotel, because I drove my girlfriend's mother's
car down there, and [??] the hotel.
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Brown: We weren't allowed on Miami beach or anything like that. And in the
hotel-- the Dodgers were trading at Vero Beach. So the Black Dodgers you
know Roy Campanella and Jackie Robinson and Don Newcombe were at the hotel,
and the tennis match-- Althea Gibson was at the hotel. Sugar Ray Robinson--
there was a boxing thing-- Sugar Ray Robinson was at the hotel with his
entourage. There was a lot of celebrities-- Snow: Yes. Brown: A little
bitty Black hotel, you know, and it was quite an experience because we
weren't allowed to be out. Okay, anyway, I got tied up a little. Snow: And
in law school you said that you shared a bathroom suite with Brown: No that
was in college. Buckley. Brown: Bill Buckley and I shared-- Snow: Oh, that
was in college. Brown: We lived across the hall from each other. Snow: I
see. Brown: It was in college and we shared a bathroom. Snow: Did you have
much interaction with him? Brown: A little bit. Snow: That's a good. That's
close. Yeah. Brown: [unintelligible]. That was it. Snow: We're through with
the first page, so. Brown: How many pages you have? Snow: Four. Brown: Oh,
good, good, good. Snow: Did you have a particular mentor in law school that
affected you in later life? Brown: No. Snow: Okay. Brown: I didn't get a
mentor in law school [unintelligible]. No. My father was a lawyer, but he
was here. Snow: Right. Brown: No. Snow: I just asked because the people
I've asked who went to
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Snow: Duquesne or Pitt had worked with just one lawyer and then-- Brown:
Oh. Snow: but that [Brown: I had never saw a courtroom]
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Snow: --affected their life.
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Brown: I've never seen a courtroom when I was in law school. Snow: Wow.
Brown: Yeah, I did. I-- I saw my uncle in court in Detroit once.
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Snow: And then-- after graduating from law school, you went into the army.
Brown: You'll have to excuse me I have to go to the bathroom. [tape paused]
Snow: Before the tape stopped, I was about to ask you what stands out in
your mind from your military experience?
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Brown: I, uh-- gave-- when I was at Yale Law School-- That gentleman came
by and recruited the entire senior class to join the Army Reserves. Uh, and
we would start as corporals. A corporal is like a specialist. Second class,
I think. So about 45 of us did that. And then when we graduated from law
school, they said they'd give us time to graduate, go take our bar exams,
and then we could get activated through the reserves as corporals rather
than be a draft of this province. Snow: Oh. Brown: So I did that and I gave
them an address. My buddy's address at Brooklyn, New York as my home
address because I wanted to be at the second Army area, so I took the bar
exam. The draft board called me for August 18th. I got myself activated
from Brooklyn, New York, August 17th. And I got to Fort Dix because if the
draft board had drafted Pittsburgh to the third Army area, which would have
been Fort Campbell, Kentucky, or Fort Jackson, South Carolina, I think it
was-- I may be wrong about the geography, but I would have been sent to the
South. Snow: Okay. Brown: And at that time, we're talking about 1954. They
were killing us. I mean, there was-- the South was just-- you know it was
Emmett Till Snow: Right. Brown: There was no way in the world I wanted to
go in the South with my attitude and everything. I just was not going to
the South, if I could help it. So I got to Fort Dix and they gave us
intelligence test and they-- out of 18,000 people that I understood, they
screened down to 20 people to be assigned to intelligence duty at Fort
Holabird or whatever that is.
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Brown: So I was one of the 20, and they had to send an-- officer come ask
me questions. And me being a smart ass like I probably always have been,
always hopefully maybe will be, was sent to Livingston anyway. Snow: right.
Brown: He said, What do you think about communism? And I said, I think it's
pretty bad shit, almost as bad as racism. Now, what did I say that for?
Snow: Uh oh. Brown: At the same time, Joe, Senator Joe McCarthy was
investigating. And of course, I was basic training and not really reading
the papers. I will say this anyway-- whatever-- He also asked if I had a
college in source. I said, well, I went to a meeting once on the campus
and-- it was supposed to be a Trotskyite fellow, and I asked him if they
abolished God, what makes the dialectic-- the Hegelian dialectic move as
they claim it does? And he put me out of the meeting, and the truth--
because they can't answer that question. Snow: Uh huh. Brown: And I said,
well, sir, I went to a dance in New York with my best buddy-- who was
Jewish-- a trumpet player. and he played at a dance. They had Black and
White people, [??]. Now, maybe some of them, you know-- and that's that's
what was my answer. At the time, it was-- there were-- Joe McCarthy was
investigating communism in the Army at Fort Dix that week.
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Snow: Oh, wow. Brown: And it was Roy Cohn and David Schine. I don't know
if you remember that. Snow: Yeah. Brown: Okay. So, they held me as a
security risk. And they had a guy named Zukovsky. He went around to see
everybody I know, my mother's friends -- they was-- did I smoke dope?-- I
forgot. Was I a homosexual?-- If I smoke dope, if I was as a homosexual,
was I-- something else-- anyway. And if anybody said yes to any of that I
would have been cooked, you know, because they weren't-- they did not
confront you in those days. And the Lebell [ph] twins-- all the Harvard Law
School people were there with me in security risk because we were all the
second Army there, because McCarthy with the Harvard Law School, everyone
pled the fifth amendment. Okay. He started asking the questions. They all
played the fifth amendment. They all got drafted. They were all in the Army
with me. So they-- so they-- I'm a corporal. I'm a non-commissioned
officer. They can't treat me bad. They can't give me KP and guard duty. If
they give, I'd be corporal of the guard, you know. So they put me aside--
put me in charge of the-- I marched the people around. I could call cadence
about as good as anyone ever. But anyway, the-- of all the people held as
security risk, I'm the only one they didn't bring any charge against. I
mean, there was no way in the world. I wasn't involved in anything, you
know. Snow: I see. Brown: But all the ones from Harvard, all the other
ones, the Army brought charges against them-- discharged them.
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Brown: They took them to federal-- took them to court, and the Army lost
every case. So that was interesting. In any event, the Army finally
released me to regular duty, sent me to Fort Bragg at the headquarters of
the 18th Airborne Corps where they taught academy and I was sitting there--
all these top-secret things going across my desk and I still had no
security clearance for it. I just thought how stupid they could be. Snow:
No doubt. Brown: And I had a lot of bizarre experiences in Fort Bragg as
far as the Army. They would arrest me for stealing my own car. I had a-- I
had an Oldsmobile with Pennsylvania plates. And they said, Nigger you stole
this car. And I had the owner's card and-- because I knew what they were
going to do. Snow: Right. Brown: I had the owner's card and the title and
everything else, you know, well they arrested me for being a prowler. It
was just-- it was a tough thing. And I never went off the post in the Army
uniform. I always put on a suit and a tie and I carried a briefcase. So
they said, you a smart one huh. I said, no officer. They always thought I
was the NAACP first. And I said, no, officer, I'm just-- whatever you say,
I'll just go with you, you know? So they didn't always let me go. But that
was interesting being in Fayetteville-- so uh-- lot of interesting
experiences. Snow: Yes.
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Snow: And North Carolina was supposed to be more tolerant. That's
amazing.
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Brown: Well, if it was, I couldn't imagine-- Snow: No doubt. Brown: Well,
yeah, in Mississippi, they probably would have just dug me in. Snow:
Absolutely. Brown: Because I was-- I had a daughter, that accent I could
really-- you know-- and I had this daughter's license plate. They wouldn't
care about me. They see the license plate on my car. Snow: Right. Brown: In
fact, it was-- one time they arrest me for stealing my car. What kind of
car? They said we got a bastard and a Nigger and a so and so. I said, well
that's terrible, what color car? Of course, they couldn't tell the color of
my car cause it was dark. [laughter] Now, that I think about it, I probably
should have treated them differently. It was kind of risky to even say
anything, I guess. Snow: Right. Brown: So I ended up as a corporal when I
started out. But I shared it with the-- unless you were the combat thing,
they became spec two, spec one, spec two. I forgot-- I forgot what I was
and I transferred myself. I wrote the papers, because I was in the
headquarters, to the second logistical command because being in the
headquarters of the 18th Airborne Corps-- that was the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 77th Special Forces. Those were soldiers. I mean, those
guys all jumped out of planes and being serious about this stuff, of
course, my classmates and I, we weren't very serious about the Army. It's
just, you do your duty for the country and country said, do two years. You
do two years. But that is it. They got their pick of places. They went to
Europe. They went all over the world. I didn't because they held me as a
security risk.
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Snow: And after you left the military, what were your plans? What did you
do?
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Brown: When I left the Army, my uncle, who lived next door to us, Everett
Utterback, he was General Counsel for the Highway Authority, and he had
gone to law school late in life. And we were in a little [coughs] suite in
the Bakewell Building. 608. I set up a law-- my first act before the court
was to present my father's commission as a judge of the Common Pleas Court,
which was-- that he was the first Black to be on that court and he was the
first Black to be elected judge in Pennsylvania, period. But he had been on
the county court, which was a court of lesser jurisdiction, a different
jurisdiction. Snow: Right. Brown: And we set up this office in the Bakewell
Building. And 2 or 3 days later, Boris Berger came to me as daddy's father
and asked me if I wanted to try a case with someone in his office, and I
said okay. So I tried a case about a fella who was accused of breaking into
someone's house and hitting him on the head with a hammer or something like
that. And I didn't know where to sit because the old law school did not
teach you how to try-- they didn't teach you anything about practicing law
of people. Okay. I mean, you might be able to go to Wall Street and the big
banks, but you don't know anything about practicing law of people. I mean,
I had people about-- so I didn't know where to sit. I didn't know who made
the opening for the opening statements or closing-- I didn't know nothing.
And all I did-- I told them this is my first case. I hope-- I hope you
don't hold it against my client, and they acquitted him. So I said, wow,
this is pretty cool. Anyway, so from then on I just tried cases and I have
to say that I-- because of being father's son, and our fairly unique
position in the community.
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Brown: I was offered just about every job any Black lawyer had around here
in the political system. Like assistant this and Assistant Solicitor this.
We're always assistants, you know. Snow: Okay. Brown: And my hero in life
is that man right there. His name is Adam Rowlett. He's my great great
grandfather. I should have mentioned him. He's-- he's my grandfather on
my-- father's side. He's my grandmother on my father's side. And I said I
never saw-- that's her father. And his name's Adam Rowlett-- that's right
where I got the little name from. I have all three last names. Snow: Right.
Brown: All I knew is that it was slavery in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
He never worked for a White man. So that was my thing. So I could not
accept their jobs. And my dad said, if you want to stand up for your
people, that's what we have to do. He didn't say I had to do it or we had
to do it. If that's what you choose to do, then you can't accept these
jobs. Snow: Hmm. Brown: If you notice the unfortunate, tragic thing about--
we have Blacks that get up and speak out this, that, and the other, and
then they give a program, you know, or they get a job. They still speak
out, but not quite the same and the targets tend to not be the people that
have the control or have the control of the program or the job. So that's
the way I practiced law. My practice has always been a people practice. If
you're working for a White-- kiss em, goodbye, you know. I think so. What
else? So I've been fortunate like that.[footsteps] Oh, thank you.
[unintelligible]
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Snow: The last question was-- was what were-- what was your occupation and
what were you doing after leaving the military and you were talking
about--
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Brown: I set up a practice.
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Snow: Being a personal lawyer.
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Brown: I started law practice. Right. The next day. [clinking silverware]
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Snow: And when did you begin your involvement with civil rights activism?
Brown: Huh. Snow: When did you begin your involvement with civil rights
activism?
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Brown: You have to understand, my father was an honorary president of the
Pittsburgh NAACP. He was a president for 25 years. So I don't know when I
wasn't involved. Snow: I see. Brown: I mean, it was just what you-- what we
did as Browns. I was elected to the board shortly after coming home, out of
the Army. [unintelligible] I don't remember. And then Jim McCoy and Henry
Smith-- Jim McCoy was chair of the UNPC, but he was a representative of the
US-- steelworkers and Henry Smith was a judge. And he later, I think,
became state president. Or maybe he was then-- came to me with the [??] and
asked me if I'd run for president. But I said okay. I ran and made the win
by two votes. Now when I was elected to the board, the incumbent people
opposed me for some reason. They were supporting Wendell Freeman [??], and
I beat him by one vote. Two votes. The person I defeated was [??] and-- we
went on from there. [clears throat] It was clear to me that-- well in those
days. Not like now, there-- right and wrong was much clearer. It's much
easier to say, I want to sit at this lunch counter and them say, no you
can't sit there, than to say-- I mean segregation was clear. The targets
were clear. You could you could generate the villains. You really can't
have heroes without villains. And uh-- so it was kind of clear that we had
to do something, what we had to do or how to do it-- none of us had any
conception of it because we're-- we're doing all this before King and
Martin Luther-- you know, the people marching in the South. And I just
finished the book Pillars of Fire, and I found it very interesting. But the
point is that in terms of time, what we were doing in Pittsburgh was on the
margins of things. It was before what they were doing in the South.
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Brown: So we didn't have any any model to follow. Snow: Hmm. Brown: And
the concept of nonviolence was just. I mean maybe you had Gandhi. But I
mean, to me that didn't-- it was not so well articulated and it didn't make
any sense anyway. Snow: I see. Brown: No way in the world I-- in the
context of Pittsburgh, no way in the world that I'm letting any of these
people hit me in the head and I'm not going to do something, and we were
not in Mississippi. So what I'm saying is that for that time, for that
milieu, I think nonviolence was probably the appropriate and best tactic in
the South. In the North, we weren't violent, but we didn't say, well, come
on, hit me in the head. Or if you hit me in the head, I better lay down and
pray. So I've sent out letters to about 90 organizations, flower clubs,
block clubs, to meet at Central Baptist-- and they all said, I think that
response was like 90%. Snow: Wow. Brown: Representatives that we forged, to
me the NAACP did have a middle class image. We were middle class and we had
to find a way to get in touch and communicate with the community as a whole
more effectively. Now, you have to understand people can say what they
want, but the NAACP is the only organization that we owned and controled.
Now, now they got this Ford Foundation, but we were-- the NAACP was us. It
was our dues. We had dues paid members. And when I was president, we had
we-- we had up to-- we peaked at around 10,000 dues paying members. That's
as big as the as Farrakhan has of members of his national church now. We
were a big organization--
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Snow: The local chapter, had 10,000 members.
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Brown: Yeah, this chapter. Snow: That's amazing and great.
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Brown: And we didn't have any-- you know, people say [unintelligible].
They might have had five people. You know, I don't want to run them down
because they were very-- what they did in the South was just-- absolutely
just incredible. But in a middle class conservative community like
Pittsburgh the NAACP was the ball game. But we were-- White people give us
such a middle class image that we had to overcome that and find a way to
get the entire community involved and [??] we are-- we're a very structured
organization. We have a board that meets every month at the same time and
meets, you know, we have protocol, we have rules, and we have a national
organization that-- most of their telegrams I didn't pay much attention to.
But, you know, but we were obliged to follow them, and we sent money to
them. So all those people came-- in the basement of Central Baptist Church.
I'm saying this because nobody really knows all this. Oh, it started out
with Charlie Harris. I don't know if you came across his name, but he spoke
at all of our meetings. And he came to my house one Sunday, my parent's
house. He says, Byrd, you got to get the people together. He says if you
call again, they'll follow you like Pied Piper. I didn't know this guy. And
that's exactly what I did, and they formed our United Negro Protest
Committee which did all of the demonstrating, and chairman of United Labor
Municipal Committee was Jim McCoy, so he's chairman of our Negro Prot--
well, I-- well he's foreman chairman of the United Negro Protest Committee
because I didn't want to look like I was the NAACP taking over all these
little organizations.
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Snow: And what had he been chair of? I didn't hear you.
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Brown: My Labor Municipal Committee, the same thing. Snow: Okay. Brown:
--Municipal Committee of the NAACP, which is supposed to help us get jobs,
and breakthrough employment. Snow: Right. Brown: So we just so we created a
United Negro Protest Committee, which was to help us get jobs and
breakthrough employment. So he's the chairman of that now. And they met on
their own. And they had-- they met and they'd formulate their own policy,
except every Wednesday, they met in my mother's basement. That's where--
and we had like a guy, a [??] committee. But, you know, they didn't have
any structure like we had a structure. I can remember once, that they
called for a boycott of Coca-Cola. And a newsman comes into my office to
interview me about something, but I have a Coke bottle on my desk. They
didn't even tell me anything to boycott. But I like that, you know, go-- go
get it, you know. But they otherwise had the first Duquesne Light march.
But it really was us because, you know, anyway. That's what we did to get
rid of the middle class image because-- Black people will get snookered in
by descriptions of us by the White dudes there as quickly as-- as White
people who tend to to believe it. So. On the bright side, if you look
carefully, a lot of stuff you got the Negro Protest Committee for.
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Snow: When was it formed?
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Brown: I don't know, because-- you have to look at old snippets. I think
1963.
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Snow: That's what I was thinking too. Brown: Huh. Snow: That's what I was
thinking, too.
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Brown: We had a big rally at Central Baptist Church. The church was filled
to the rafters. Reverend Hacker gave a great speech. He said, let's march.
I will never forget that speech. Then we marched out around Duquesne Light.
That was with the first arrest occurred. It was Jim and Lailee [??] and
myself. And of course, the Whites are gathered in Mellon Park. Duquesne
Light was next to the William Pitt Hotel where [unintelligible].
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Snow: Right. Oh, Mellon Square downtown. Brown: Uh huh.
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Brown: So the Whites were gathered by the park and we were marching around
Duqusne Light. And you have to understand, we had no concept of what could
or would happen. In other words,this had never happened. We didn't know if
the police would shoot us, beat us, or let us march. Because all of our
marching, they were saying, well, what about the permit, we ain't getting
any permit. They said, where are you going to go? We're going to march
where we want to march. If it blocks traffic so be it. If you want to
arrest us do what you have to do. So we just marched. So the police
arrested the three of us, but they were smart here in Pittsburgh. They took
us to the police station, and then the people started getting restless
because--
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Snow: Excuse me one minute. [tape ends]
