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Michael Snow: This is tape two, side one of a State and Local Government
Archives interview with Byrd Brown. Byrd Brown: Anyway, I got to the police
station.
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Brown: And my lawyer-- I'll call it my conciliary, was Eric Springer. You
know Eric? Snow: No. Brown: He's-- He might be on the board of trustees at
Pitt. I think he is at Preston, but he's not a static lawyer, and my chair
of our negotiating committee, by the way, of Duquesne Light was Livingston
Johnson. Now, Judge Livingston Johnson. Snow: Really? Brown: Uh huh. So--
well, he just retired, but he was a judge then. Uh, they uh-- they released
us immediately on our own [??], and the police took me right back up to
the-- to the Light. We did not believe in nonviolence. Wow, I said, we
wanted to keep it under control. What I'm saying is that we didn't believe
in nonviolence of course if someone attacked us, that we would just go lay
down and let someone beat us up. So we had no violence. They kept their
people in the other part who-- some of them were Nazis. They had shown
themselves as the Nazi Party, anyway. And now, what I want you to
understand is that we were out there-- every company we picketed or had a
boycott against, we had some research on. Duquesne Light had several [??]--
now, my figures could be wrong. This was 40 years of memory. Employees,
they had 33 Blacks. This is correct, and 32 were [??]. There was a part
time receptionist, who I suspect they hired so when I communicated we could
see somebody Black. We could report that there was a Negro receptionist
some days, so we called her at the-- so the employment pattern-- Oh, and
now Eric Springer is on the board of Duquesne Light, which is interesting.
And--
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Snow: I'm just shocked in the newspaper articles that I've read on those
incidents, they never mention the White counterprotesters. And it's-- it's
almost.
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Brown: They weren't really protesting they were just there. Snow: I see.
Brown: They didn't know what to do either. They didn't seem to have a
leader to say, okay, let's do something. Oh, wow.
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Snow: They're working on your house today.
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Brown: I hope he's a window cleaner.
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Snow: Looks like it. Yeah.
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Brown: If he's not, I'm denying it. [laughter] But anyhow, they were just
there happening like-- well, some of them had swastikas, as I remember, but
they weren't. Oh, you don't need to read the clippings. You've already read
about this.
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Snow: I read what I found in the Carnegie Library, and it seemed
scattered. They didn't have a good clippings file in the 60s.
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Brown: Okay, well-- but they never were a threat. Well, they-- they were
received a really-- we had enough people to go around that building 3 or 4
breadth, so they really weren't-- I mean there were a lot of people. We had
thousands. Several, thousands so. We had some bad dudes there too. The only
biggest problem I had, we didn't figure out how people were going to eat.
You have to understand, we didn't know what we were doing [unintelligible].
Hey, hey. Duquesne Light's coming. Yeah, let's go. And we didn't know if 10
people were going to show up or 10,000. So now all these people are there
in the middle of town. Snow: Uh huh. Brown: We're marching around. You
can't-- there's no fast food restaurant to march-- and we had no money. We
had no money. If they had arrested us we wouldn't have paid the fine, we'd
all been in jail to this day. You know, I mean, I'm certain people would
have contributed some money, but we had no money. So, finally someone got
that we got to feed these folks. I'd be like-- I-- like, a guy like John
Banks because of Sir John Banks walked in from Homewood, and had holes in
his shoes. The thing that's so sad and ironic about all of this marching,
is that the people who marched and marched the hardest, and chanted, and
chanted the loudest. They weren't ever going to get any jobs at Duquesne
Light. Snow: Hmm. Brown: You know, the ones that are so-called qualified
came around later. They don't do anything that amounts to marching. You
know that's-- that's what hurts me so badly.
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Snow: Looking back on it.
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Brown: Like John Banks was there every day, walking in from-- I want to
say St. Clair Village with holes in his shoes. I mean John could have got
hired as a janitor. He had no education. And maybe they could have trained
him for something. But it's doubtful because any kind of qualification
thing he wouldn't do well on. And yet he wanted-- he-- and he was not out
there for a job for himself. He knew that. Snow: Hmm. Brown: And he had
to-- [unintelligible] his job. You think that they at least paid a $10 to
join an organization like the NAACP or something, But they think they
arrived pristinely and nobody suffered to get them there. Well, anyway.
Okay, well.
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Snow: Well, I was just wondering, um, about the demonstrations that had
been going on before that. Duquesne Light, if I remember, was from 1967.
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Brown: I don't think.
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Snow: Was it earlier?
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Brown: I think it was 63, I think. Snow: Okay. Ah, it was in those
clippings.
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Snow: Right. Okay. You also led protests at Gimbels.
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Brown: There were demonstrations-- were against the shoe stores. They
wouldn't hire the Blacks at the shoe stores around Crawfords in that area,
Gimbels. And those were small demonstrations. Fact, why don't you cut this
[??], and send Jesse Owens up to talk to us. My uncle, Everett Utterback
back was the national [??] champion. He had the record before Jesse Owens.
They were good friends. That's when we told Jesse, now, you know-- I mean,
he knew he wasn't going to talk about anything and I said he was a-- he was
a public relations person. Snow: Hmm. Brown: Of course, it's what the White
kind of did. They get a black athlete to hire for public PR. They still do.
Snow: Right. Brown: They think that that's going to represent the race and
the athlete though they don't.
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Snow: That's a difficult position for them.
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Brown: Yeah it must have been a real hard position.
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Snow: Yeah, especially back before you had professional athletes
salaries.
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Brown: Yeah Jesse always had great class. Well. I don't know-- the next
time you come, all the clippings are there. So that will give us a
chronology. I cannot tell you the date.
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Snow: That's fine. I-- No one expects you to.
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Brown: I don't think it-- 67 was probably the Black Instructor Coalition
Marchers.
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Snow: I understood those to be in 69, but the Post-- Brown: I thought they
were 69 too. Snow: If the Post Gazette can think that the recent Jonny
Gammage protest at 2000 people was the largest civil rights demonstration
in the city's history-- Brown: Oh no, we had-- Snow: then they can be wrong
on other dates, too.
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Brown: They said 2000. Snow: Yeah. Brown: When did it say that?
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Snow: This would have been in 1997, I think was--
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Brown: Yeah the Gammage thing. Snow: Yeah. Brown: That wasn't anything. I
got pictures of more than 2000. No. Did you see the pictures? I got
pictures of-- you know you can count em there's more than 2000 people and
they were still going for blocks. Snow: right. Brown: Oh, no. We had-- they
said the largest civil rights demonstration? I led the board 12 blocks
[unintelligible]. That was many more than 2000. That Post-- they must be
young people. They don't remember.
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Snow: [laughs] Well, that-- that's a more forgiving interpretation of what
I keep hearing of it.
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Brown: The march at Duquesne Light had more than 2000. Snow: Yeah. Brown:
I mean you can see it, right in the pictures.
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Snow: Well, they said that Duquesne Light-- that march had 5000. But it's
just strange that they don't read their own paper to see that sort of
thing.
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Brown: The Black Construction March rally had many more than that. Then
they signed that so-called agreement with the Pittsburgh But uh-- about
2,000. We had 2,000 around the Board of Education. It wasn't that hard to
get out people, then. As I say, the villains were clear. Snow: Hmm. Brown:
And the lines of communication was fairly clear. I can say this-- I don't
know about the damage behind this, but there never was any person or group
that got more than 100 people together to go demonstrate about anything
except us. There were a lot of people that gathered. People would gather,
but not many people showed up, but--
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Brown: I think marching just became unfashionable.
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Snow: The paper listed you as having been involved in the 1963 March on
Washington. Brown: Yeah.
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Brown: I got these messages-- telegraphs of the national office, to
support this March on Washington, and I disregarded them. Seemed to me that
we had enough marching to do here. What was the point of going and marching
in Washington? I just didn't have any sense. Sometimes if you are in a
leadership position, you do in fact lose contact with what is in the
community and you might as well admit it. You know, I think people of
leadership always acted as though [??] or something was going to happen, or
they're right on top of it. Sometimes, as history goes, you're just there
and you get swept up and all of a sudden [Snow: Right] you get to be a
hero. But other times you just you get swept up because you didn't even
know what was going on, you know? And, so I just rejected it, it was out of
hand. Father Macklevay [ph] came to me, and other people, I think maybe
[??] and a lot of Black people said, well, we have to support this part.
And finally I said, well, it's not going to hurt to support it. So I should
probably say we should collect and march. And lo and behold, we got more
people signed up that we could even deal with. It was just amazing. The
feedback from the community that people were willing to go to Washington to
sit around on a hot day and do nothing as far as I was concerned. We had to
charter a train. We went down there, and we chartered train, but we filled
up a train. Snow: Wow. Brown: For the Theodore Station, and I remember I
think we were on the cover of one of the national magazines getting off the
train at the Theodore Station. And I remember-- but I don't know what
magazine, but I think we were and I'd like to get it, but I don't know what
it is. If you ran accross it-- maybe not.
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Snow: I think I just found that-- that photo. Brown: Really? Snow: Yeah.
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Brown: Yeah, I'd love to see it, or have it. Anyway, we got off this
train. We ride this train. When we get off this train, we had to walk from
Union Station to where the march is. I don't know how we even got there
because I don't know who knew where to go, but we did. We get there it is--
we get to where the march is. I read something recently about porta-johns.
I didn't see a porta-john there at all. I pulled up under-- the trees, at
that point, were about as thick as that lamp. A little skinny, scranny tree
and you couldn't get any shade. It was a real hot day. I mean it was hot.
All these people, hot air, people speaking, you know? And I had to go to
the bathroom. I couldn't get any shade. I was just-- I was a young man. I
was tough. I wasn't [??] out of the Army. It was just bitter. And so we
started leaving. Everyone's going away, slowly, because these speakers were
just boring. Don't tell me what race is about. They're not talking to us.
They're really talking to the president of the United States. Snow: Sure.
Brown: And Martin gets up and starts out I have a-- first place--
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Brown: The most important part of his speech is never quoted. He said, Why
we came there to cash a check. America owed us a check and it's been NSF,
and that part was never quoted. And then he goes into I have a dream, so
we're going to get this check cashed. You know, we [??] and all of us just
started to turn around and pressing up to the speaker. Now, at this point,
I'm-- I'm about 100 yards from where I started. But I went like this--
right up to the-- right, up to the podium and I just start crying like a
baby. I mean, I cried. And uh, That was that. A heck of a book. I'm tired.
I guess we went back on a train out-- Snow: Hmm. Brown: I went to the 25th
reunion of the march. I found myself under the same tree. Just by
happenstance, but the tree was 25 years bigger and stronger. Our movement
had become 25 years stronger. Bigger and better like the tree did. I guess
the movement, they say, was 10 years, 20 years. What else could you expect?
Well, when do you want to come back? If you want to come back, because I
have to go. [tape ends]
